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Chavan said that GeM acts like the "Amazon of the government procurement", describing it as a very successful experiment of the Indian government in terms of bringing together the industry, policy makers on a single platform, and generating business opportunities.

He also quoted data from the Centre of Science and Environment, according to which an unskilled worker loses anywhere between INR 7200-19,600 each year because of traffic, a skilled worker could lose up to INR 23,800, and a highly skilled worker could go beyond INR 30,000, pointing to the need for immediate decongestion in Bengaluru.

AI could add hundreds of billions to India's GDP over the coming decade if adoption accelerates, underpinning coordinated public and private investment plans.

Looking back on his early days as an entrepreneur, Bahl said that the difficult years in the restaurant business became the stepping stone for Veeba.

He pointed out that India's real entrepreneurial engine lies in its small and medium businesses, with the MSME sector having 67 million entrepreneurs producing 6–7 per cent of GDP.

Moderated by Punita Sabharwal, Managing Editor of Entrepreneur Media India, the conversation featured Arun Chittilappilly, Executive Chairman and Managing Director of Wonderla Holidays Ltd., and Harsh Binani, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Smartworks.

Homegrown brands have increasingly gained a foothold in Indian consumerism, with 58 per cent of the respondents saying that they like to shop for products mainly from local or small businesses, with 76 per cent of the group saying they appreciate authentic communication by local brands, along with innovative solutions for everyday problems.

To date, the sector has raised USD 989 million across 203 equity rounds, a steady expansion despite current cautious funding activity. India's Fitness Tech ecosystem is currently comprised of more than 600 active startups, of which 96 have secured equity funding.

The Bain India VC Report 2025 highlights a shift: venture funding jumped to USD 13.7 billion in 2024, a 1.4 times increase over the previous year, while deal volumes grew 45 per cent. Yet, nearly all of that growth came from small- and mid-ticket deals, with mega-rounds slowing sharply, a sign that investors are tightening standards.

In 2024, Bain & Company's India Venture Capital Report finds that CVCs stepped up meaningfully: their deal volumes increased approximately 1.8 times versus 2023, and their share of India's overall VC deal volume rose to 20 per cent, up from 16 per cent in 2023.

Insights captured from nearly 100 deeptech founders in India revealed that over 53 per cent of the founders maintain that funding in the sector remains difficult to access, while 44 per cent found it reasonably available. Only 3 per cent of the study group said that the funds were abundantly available.

According to Gupta, the AI product has notably had takers from close to 35 top companies, such as Cars24, Spinny, LendingKart, Tata AIG, other D2C brands, and also one of the top banks in India, allowing them to increase operational efficiency by using technology to engage with customers and gain insights.

Cuzor Labs announced an INR 5 Crore seed round, marking a first angel-investment from Ramesh Kannan, Founder and Managing Director of Kaynes Technology India Limited, underscoring growing confidence in India's ability to build globally competitive hardware.

The Indian IPO market is on an uptick mainly due to positive sentiment, strengthened by expectations of reform announcements ahead of Diwali, reinforcing the ongoing relief rally, with analysts highlighting that the market's gap-up opening earlier in the week signaled strong investor confidence in the uptrend.

Approved in principle earlier this June, SEBI has cleared a framework to let Cat-I/II AIFs launch a Co-Investment scheme (CIV) inside the AIF structure, instead of using a separate portfolio management service (PMS), available to accredited investors in that AIF. Each co-investment will be a separate CIV scheme with some relaxed requirements.

JSW Cement IPO allotment on August 12, listing scheduled for August 14, while NSDL Shares deliver 78 per cent IPO Returns; stock extends winning streak.

For private equity (PE) and impact firms like Leapfrog, these trends are shaping their investment strategy for the foreseeable future.

India's readiness is further underscored by its rapid rise in AI talent and multilingual NLP capabilities, enabling developers and non-developers, even in remote regions, to build applications in regional languages.

India's private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) investment landscape in 2025 reflects a market navigating both macroeconomic headwinds and sectoral realignments: In the first half of the year, PE/VC investments totaled USD 26.4 billion across 593 deals, according to the latest data from the EY-IVCA Mid-Year Report.

A joint IAMAI–Grant Thornton Bharat report estimates the sector's value is projected to grow at 25.8 per cent CAGR, reaching nearly USD 29 billion by 2030. It further estimates that EdTech's share of India's GDP will quadruple, from 0.1 per cent in 2020 to approximately 0.4 per cent by 2029.

Scheduled for liftoff on July 30, 2025, at 5:40 PM IST, the mission will take off aboard the GSLV-F16 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

In H1 2025 alone, there were 73 M&A deals, up from 54 in H1 2024. Notable transactions include Magma General Insurance's USD 516M sale to DS Group/Patanjali and HUL's USD 350M acquisition of Minimalist.

Eternal's expenses stood at INR 7,433 crore, up by 77 per cent. The company's revenue from operations for Q1 of FY26 stood at INR 7,167 crore, up by 70.4 per cent from INR 4,206 crore in the corresponding quarter.

IndiQube Spaces Limited is launching a INR 7,000 million IPO on July 23, 2025, to fund its expansion and tech infrastructure as it scales its flexible workspace solutions across India. GNG Electronics Limited is also going public, with a INR 400 crore fresh issue and OFS component, aiming to repay borrowings and support general corporate needs.

As venture funding tightens, founders are increasingly tapping grants, venture debt, and revenue-based financing to extend their runway without giving up ownership

Indian startups are uniquely positioned to lead this revolution given their talent density, cost advantages, and global mindset. Vertical AI adoption is also accelerating rapidly across industries due to a convergence of data, compute affordability, and enterprise readiness.

A growing number of Indian startups originally incorporated abroad are now shifting their domicile back to India. This move commonly referred to as a "reverse flip" marks a significant shift in strategy for high-growth startups looking to align more closely with India's maturing capital markets, evolving regulatory landscape, and investor expectations.

According to a state press release, key objectives of the scheme will include encouraging the private sector to scale up research, development, and innovation (RDI) in "sunrise domains" and other sectors relevant for economic security, strategic purpose, and self-reliance.

The country is now home to more than 100 space-tech startups, most of which were founded in the last 5 years. The global space technology startup stage experienced a slowdown, while the Indian counterparts enjoyed a healthy upward funding trend.

Currently, according to the minister, 95 per cent of rural areas in India have access to 4 G. India now has 1.2 billion mobile subscribers, being the second largest network in the world, with a billion people having access to broadband connectivity. The country also boasts the largest rural connectivity with 'Bharatnet', which covers close to 2.2 lakh villages.