Google’s spotlight on Indian startups; Touching new zeniths in aerospace

Hello,

Get, set, Olympics! 

In the first-ever non-stadium event, River Seine set the stage for the Paris Olympics 2024, as athletes worldwide descended on France’s capital for the summer games.

India, with a 117-member strong contingent, will participate in 16 sports and expects to deliver its best-ever performance to date. In fact, a sleep doctor has been onboarded to help Indian athletes be at their sharpest at the games!

With a global event in tow, the French government’s cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, has geared up to thwart any cyber attacks, working with close to 500 organisations critical to the functioning of the summer games.

Did you know? This year, Paris commemorates the 100th anniversary of the first Paris Olympics held in 1924. Understandably, Parisian hotels are slashing prices—as much as 40%—to lure visitors. 

Meanwhile, Indian stock markets have registered their best session in seven weeks following the last few days of the market onslaught. The NSE Nifty 50 rose 1.76% to 24,834.85, while the S&P BSE Sensex gained 1.62% to 81,332.72.

In other news, Maharashtra has overtaken Karnataka in the number of DPIIT-registered startups. 

As of June 30, DPIIT has recognised 1.40 lakh entities as startups. Of this, over 25,000 are recognised in Maharashtra, followed by Karnataka (15,019), Delhi (14,734), Uttar Pradesh (13,299), and Gujarat (11,436).

Lastly, check out this Asian city that encourages you to eat till you are bankrupt! 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Google’s spotlight on Indian startups
• Touching new zeniths in aerospace
• Growing the startup ecosystem

Here’s your trivia for today: Which cities have hosted the Olympics three times?

Interview

Google’s spotlight on Indian startups

Google recognises India as a crucial centre for startup innovation, driven by its vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem and rapidly growing tech talent, and is investing in the country accordingly, say Google Cloud executives.

In a candid chat with YourStory, General Manager and Vice President, Cloud Runtimes Chen Goldberg and Director of Customer Engineering Subram Natarajan discuss the growing trend of Indian startups harnessing the power of GenAI and the challenges associated with it. 

AI innovation:

• India as a market, including its rapidly evolving startup ecosystem, offers the scale and opportunity to build global-scale products and services, believes Natarajan. 
• To tackle the challenge of talent skilling and experimenting with GenAI, Google is developing its Vertex AI platform, which provides access to a wide range of models, including Gemini, Llama, and other open-source options.
• Other challenges for technology companies and startups that possess the expertise and talent to utilise GenAI include AI workloads and high costs, according to Goldberg.

Top Funding Deals of the Week

Startup: Unimech Aerospace

Amount: Rs 250 Cr

Round: Undisclosed

Startup: Nasher Miles

Amount: $4M

Round: Bridge

Startup: Mamo

Amount: $3.4M

Round: Undisclosed

Women Entrepreneurs 

Touching new zeniths in aerospace

In 2007, Radhika P transitioned from her scientist role at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to provide cutting-edge technology in a sector few women ventured into.

Today, her startup Pinaka Aerospace is an industry leader offering services, including independent verification and validation of critical software, maintenance, repair, and overhaul of airborne hardware.

Breaking barriers:

• Radhika spearheaded initiatives for airborne and ground-based electronic warfare and communication intelligence systems at the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory of DRDO in Hyderabad for 17 years before venturing into entrepreneurship. 
• Pinaka’s product lineup, including automatic testers and simulators, provides support for a variety of IAF platforms, ensuring their optimal performance.
• From Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commendation for developing the OSA-AK SAM-8 missile’s alignment system to the Outstanding Vendor award from Bharat Electronics Ltd, Pinaka has earned many accolades along its journey. 

Investor

ICYMI: Growing the startup ecosystem

Working with big corporations and smaller companies for a decade helped Priyanka Agarwal Chopra discover a deep passion for building businesses.

Her career trajectory and experience in building up small-scale startups took her all the way to IIMA Ventures, a startup incubator established by IIM Ahmedabad. Today, she works as the managing partner of seed investing, helping young entrepreneurs realise their potential.

Incubating ideas:

• IIMA Ventures offers a network of industry connections, in-depth training programmes, one-on-one mentorship, guidance in identifying potential customers, strategic direction for business acceleration, and support in securing funds.
• IIMA Ventures has been an advocate of women's empowerment with programmes like Her&Now, a women-focused accelerator programme that has supported over 100 women entrepreneurs through mentoring, capacity building, access to networks, and catalytic capital.
• The accelerator has funded more than 350 startups, including over 300 startups at the pre-seed and seed stages and around 40 startups at the early-growth stage.

News & updates

• Price cut: Apple has reduced the prices of its iPhone models in India by 3% to 4% after the government slashed import duties on imported smartphones to 15% from 20%. The price cuts range from Rs 300 for the made-in-India iPhones and up to Rs 6,000 for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, and more.
• Plant: Memory chip giant SK Hynix, which supplies to Nvidia, plans to invest 9.4 trillion KRW ($6.8 billion) to build a new semiconductor manufacturing plant in an emerging chip hub in South Korea. SK Hynix is one of the world’s top three memory chip makers. 
• Life: A spotty, vein-filled 3ft by 2ft rock found by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars contains features that suggest it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago. The arrowhead-shaped rock revealed signs of organic material, intriguing surface spots similar to those associated with fossilised microbes on Earth and evidence that water once passed through the rock.

Which cities have hosted the Olympics three times?

Answer: London and Paris, including the 2024 Olympics. 

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