Inc42

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued a penal action against quick commerce and ecommerce platforms for various food safety and regulatory non-compliances. Quick commerce companies, including Amazon, Bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto, have been penalised by the regulator for allegedly engaging in misbranding, misleading claims, sale and display of prohibited or poisonous food articles via e-commerce platforms, FSSAI said in a social media. The penal ac

Meesho backer RPS Ventures sold nearly 3.9 Cr shares of ecommerce major Meesho to net ₹899.7 Cr. As per BSE bulk deal data, RPS’ holding entity RPS WOS II LLC offloaded a total of 3.86 Cr equity shares, or around 0.8% of Meesho’s total equity, in a block deal valuing each share at ₹233. The trading price is a 1.4% discount to the stock’s closing price today. The shares that flooded the market were lapped up by the Government of Singapore (1.3 Cr shares), Mirae Asset Mutual Fund (77.2 Lakh shares

Ahead of opening its initial public offering (IPO) for bidding, fintech unicorn Moneyview has raised ₹327.5 Cr from anchor investors by allocating 9.63 Cr shares at an issue price of ₹34 per equity share, the upper end of the IPO’s price band. Seven domestic mutual funds via fourteen schemes netted 6.96 Cr or 72% of the anchor round. SBI Mutual Fund’s SBI Banking and Financial Services Fund lapped up the highest 1.47 Cr shares or 15.27% of the anchor round, investing over ₹50 Cr.  Vi

BYJU’S has reportedly reached a settlement with Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL) over the dispute over the latter’s rights issue. As per a report by LiveLaw Biz, BYJU’S senior advocate Abhinav Vasisht and senior advocate C K Nandakumar on Aakash’s behalf, informed the NCLT’s Bengaluru about the settlement today.  The proceedings relate to Aakash’s rights issue, which BYJU’S had challenged before the NCLT, alleging oppression and mismanagement. Amid a financial strain, Aakash had

Electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Zelio E-Mobility’s board of directors approved a proposal today to raise up to ₹167.95 Cr via a preferential issue of equity shares and convertible warrants to fund its growth initiatives. The BSE SME listed company will issue up to 9.73 Lakh equity shares at an issue price of ₹853 per share to four non-promoter institutional and private investors, aggregating to nearly ₹83 Cr. The allottees would be Motilal Oswal Financial Services to get ₹40.1 Cr, Calliope Ca

Multiples Alternate Asset Management has led a $150 Mn funding round in Prime Focus-backed AI audiovisual content platform Brahma AI, with the investment firm putting in $100 Mn through preferred shares. Brahma will use the fresh capital for research and development (R&D), international expansion, hiring and building out the company’s capabilities. Multiples founder, MD and CEO Renuka Ramnath said the firm will support Brahma AI’s next phase of growth, including investments in R&D, globa

IPO-bound B2B seafood brand Captain Fresh’s consolidated net profit declined 54% to ₹19.6 Cr in the financial year ended March 31, 2026 (FY26) from ₹42.4 Cr in FY25. The drop in profit came despite a 52% jump in consolidated operating revenue to ₹5,093 Cr from ₹3,352.3 Cr in FY25. Including other income, total income stood at ₹5,169 Cr during the fiscal, according to the company’s annual report.  Meanwhile, its adjusted EBITDA rose 2.7X to ₹371 Cr from ₹136 Cr in the previous fiscal, it said i

More than 70 founders, ₹30,000 Cr in collective revenue and three days on a private island. Those numbers might tell you who was in the room, but not what happened after. Between September 17-19, Raffles Udaipur became the setting for candid conversations, unexpected connections and stories that stayed off the record for India’s D2C and retail ecosystem. The three days showed what happens when people building some of India’s most consequential consumer businesses get the time, distance, and trus

Advertising agency Blink Digital India has recently sued Meta and its India entity Facebook India Online Services Private Limited for a compensation of about ₹1,000 Cr over four ‘Meta Business Manager’ accounts that were disabled by the latter on its platform.  As per the court’s documents, Blink Digital filed its complaint with the Bombay High Court on September 17 (Thursday). The ad agency is seeking restoration of its accounts and compensation for the disabling of its four accounts.  For cont

Anthropic and OpenAI have rolled out new AI models, putting lower inference costs and safety safeguards at the centre of the intensifying frontier AI race. Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5, its latest flagship model, touting stronger performance, lower running costs, and enhanced safeguards. Meanwhile, OpenAI expanded its GPT-6 family with GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, describing Sol as a lower-cost alternative to its recently launched GPT-6 Astra and Luna as its fastest and most cost-efficient mo

Mumbai-based fintech Easy Platform Services, which owns and operates digital lending startup Zype, turned profitable in FY26, posting a consolidated profit after tax (PAT) of ₹5.3 Cr against a loss of ₹12.9 Cr in FY25.  The startup’s consolidated total income jumped 66.6% to ₹176.6 Cr during the year from ₹106 Cr in FY25, according to ratings agency ICRA. Easy Platform continued to remain profitable in the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal year. It provisionally posted a PAT of ₹6.1 Cr on

Update | September 23, 13:10 IST Electric two-wheeler startup Ultraviolette Automotive has raised $85 Mn (about ₹813 Cr) in a Series E round co-led by Yali Capital and TDK Ventures. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and other investors also participated in the round. Cofounder and CEO Narayan Subramaniam told Inc42 that the startup would use the capital to expand its manufacturing capacity and product portfolio, as well as strengthen its distribution network in India and overseas.  “We are looking to enter

For a company that started out sending SMSes, Gupshup has spent nearly two decades learning one thing: how businesses talk to their customers. That experience is now becoming the foundation for its next bet: conversational AI. Gupshup is no longer positioning itself simply as a messaging infrastructure company. Its product stack is expanding from SMS and WhatsApp to voice AI, AI agents, campaign orchestration and tools that allow enterprises to connect multiple AI models with customer-engagement

Imagine handing an AI agent a task you would normally give to a junior employee: open the company’s software, find the right customer record, fill in a form, check a few details and send the result back. You simply assign AI the job and let it work. OpenAI claims to have achieved just that, with the launch of GPT-6 Astra earlier this month. Unlike a chatbot that simply responds to prompts, Astra can take on a task and work through a computer like a human would.  OpenAI calls Astra its most intel

Indian Startup IPOs In Full Swing Indian startup IPO spring is in full bloom. Snapdeal parent AceVector is all set to list on the bourses next month, Spinny has filed its draft IPO papers, and Furlenco is pushing the needle on its D-Street debut.  Snapdeal’s IPO Deck: In its second attempt at a listing, the Snapdeal parent’s ₹420 Cr issue blends a ₹287 Cr fresh raise and a trimmed OFS  of 4.16 Cr shares. It has also set the IPO price band at ₹30-₹32, valuing the company at ₹1,741 Cr at the upper

Pine Labs’ early backer Mastercard has exited the company by selling its entire 4.31% stake through a bulk deal on Tuesday. The investor offloaded 4.97 Cr shares at ₹187.75 apiece, fetching ₹933.6 Cr. The deal was executed at a 5% discount to Pine Labs’ closing price today. Mutual funds and foreign institutional investors emerged as key buyers, with ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company picking up the largest chunk of 93.1 Lakh shares, according to BSE data. Societe Generale bought 87.7 Lakh s

So far, AI in the inbox has so far meant assistance in drafting.  Microsoft has pushed Copilot deeper into Outlook, Google has embedded Gemini across Workspace, to provide AI assistants designed to organise inbox, draft replies in your specific tone, and capture meeting notes directly. Almost all of them still wait for the final go-ahead. Sol, a proactive AI assistant, wants to flip that order. Founded in 2025 by three former Cred executives, Anish Karan, Prateek Srivastava and Ranjith Nair, the

India’s manufacturing story is entering a new era. After years of policy support and incentives, capital is now flowing into factories, production lines and specialised industrial technology. The semiconductor industry offers the clearest signal of this shift. At Semicon India 2026 earlier this month, the Centre said it has received investment commitments totalling ₹1 Lakh Cr under the recently notified Semicon 2.0 mission.  Global suppliers are also beginning to treat India as part of the

IPO-bound Zetwerk and US-based transformer startup Ayr Energy have reached a settlement by agreeing to dismiss all claims in lawsuits pending before the Texas Business Court and a separate case involving Zetwerk Manufacturing Businesses and Ayr Energy’s founder Anirudh Reddy before a Bengaluru court. “The companies have dismissed all claims asserted in the lawsuits pending in the Texas Business Court and those asserted in the case involving Zetwerk Manufacturing Businesses Limited and Anir

Walmart-backed PhonePe has received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) for two payment licences, taking the IPO-bound fintech major closer to launching its first locally regulated payments operation outside India. The approvals cover Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes (RPSCS) and Stored Value Facilities (SVF). While the RPSCS licence covers regulated retail payment services, the SVF licence permits the issuance and operation of stored-value products such as di