Puran Choudhary

The fresh job cuts come just months after ET reported on May 6 that the Bhavish Aggarwal-led startup had abandoned much of its original full-stack AI strategy amid funding constraints, shelving work on its indigenous large language models and semiconductor ambitions while switching focus to AI cloud infrastructure and enterprise services.

Founded by Indian entrepreneurs Nitin Jayakrishnan and Abhijeet Manohar, the San Francisco-headquartered startup has been operating in stealth for the past two years. It counts Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Dunkin' and Cardinal Health among its customers. It will use the fresh capital to expand deployments of its AI agents, which automate procurement, supplier management, invoice processing and payment workflows for large enterprises.

Founded in 2017 by Sunil Patel, the former head of Bajaj Auto's Chetak EV development programme, and Netaji Patro, a former R&D leader at Maruti Suzuki and Bajaj Auto, Matel develops energy-efficient motors, motor controllers, and integrated powertrains for electric vehicles and industrial applications.

Beyond the investment Activate and Sarvam plan to work together on three areas: supporting India's AI startup ecosystem, helping large digital-first companies adopt AI, and building research talent. The investment comes a day after Sarvam announced that it is raising an additional $75 million from investors including Nvidia, Glade Brook Capital and Gaja Capital.

Sidbi has moved from a fixed formula for venture funds to tap capital for startup investments to a graded formula allowing them to call a larger amount, according to a document seen by ET and multiple people aware of the matter. Investors said that while the flexibility removes bottlenecks, the push to accelerate drawdowns could pressure funds to invest when quality opportunities remain limited.

Founded by IIT Madras alumni Advait Sridhar and Akash Ramdas, the company believes today’s AI chips generate heat exceeding 140 watts per square centimetre, making thermal management a growing challenge. The company will initially focus on materials that can help address this problem, while its broader technology is aimed at discovering materials across the semiconductor stack.

Bajaj Auto-backed Yulu is in talks with GEF Capital and One Planet Partners to raise the funds at a valuation of about $250 million, up from $200-210 million previously, sources said. The fundraise comes at a time when energy transition, the larger umbrella under which EV falls, has emerged as one of the fastest-growing themes within India’s deeptech venture ecosystem.

Aditya Agarwal, partner at SPC, and Prateek Mehta, general partner-India, told ET in an exclusive interaction that the firm is seeing a growing pool of Indian founders willing to take on harder, more ambitious problems across aerospace, semiconductors, biotech, defence, energy, and physical AI.

Chennai-based Bluehill.VC has raised Rs 408 crore for its initial deeptech venture fund. The firm has already deployed approximately Rs 100 crore across seven companies and plans to invest in sixteen startups, focusing on proprietary technologies. The venture fund intends to raise additional growth and early-stage funds over the next four years.

Reagents are chemicals used in diagnostic tests to detect specific biological markers in a sample. The founders said the longer-term objective is to develop diagnostic capabilities for human spaceflight, including India’s Gaganyaan programme and the proposed Bhartiya Antariksh Station.