Sports tournaments for startup ecosystem; EVJoints solving pain points in EV adoption

Hello,

Ather’s making its way through the IPO season, slow and steady.

The EV maker’s IPO braved choppy market conditions and was fully subscribed on its third day, with the total offering subscribed 1.43X.

Qualified institutional buyers and non-institutional investors came to the rescue, with the portion reserved for QIBs being subscribed 1.7X times, and non-institutional investors subscribing 66% of their portion of the offering.

Ather’s IPO performance still lagged behind other companies, including its rival Ola Electric, foodtech major Swiggy, and FirstCry. The real question, as always, will be whether the momentum will continue post listing.

Meanwhile, Freshworks is riding the AI wave, with a 19% growth in revenue in Q1, and a narrowing GAAP operating loss on rising GenAI demand, enterprise deals, and steady spending from small- and mid-sized businesses. 

As companies and people alike integrate AI further into their daily processes, OpenAI just released a post-mortem into why the recent GPT-4o update made ChatGPT the ultimate sycophant, to the point of agreeing with all sorts of dangerous decisions and ideas.

The overly validating responses by ChatGPT were intended to make the model’s default personality “feel more intuitive and effective,” according to the company, and the update has since been rolled back and fixes are being implemented to increase the model’s honesty and transparency. 

Nobody likes a yes man.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Sports tournaments for startup ecosystem
• EVJoints solving pain points in EV adoption
• Empowering girls’ education in rural India

Here’s your trivia for today: What substance was used in early thermometers before mercury?

Entrepreneurship 

Sports tournaments for startup ecosystem

Venture Capital firm Endiya Partners has teamed up with the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy to launch Game On!—a first-of-its-kind sports tournament exclusively for the Indian startup ecosystem. The initiative aims to promote well-being, build resilience, and cultivate leadership within the ever-competitive startup ecosystem. 

Key takeaways:

• The Game On! tournament will kick off in Bengaluru’s Lakshyan Academy of Sports on June 6 and 7, featuring badminton, table tennis, and box cricket.
• Following its debut in Bengaluru, Endiya Partners will be organising tournaments a couple of times each year in Mumbai and Delhi, with possible tournaments in Hyderabad and Chennai later in the year. 
• Endiya Partners, which has invested in Cult.fit, Darwinbox, ekincare, Sig Tuple, and Sugar.fit, among others, believes in enabling the third wave of Indian entrepreneurs—startups that build scalable products.

Funding Alert

Startup: SatLeo

Amount: $3.3M

Round: Pre Seed

Startup: QNu Labs

Amount: Rs 60 Cr

Round: Series A

Startup: Anveshan

Amount: Rs 48 Cr

Round: Series A

Electric vehicle

EVJoints solving a critical pain point in EV adoption

The EV charging ecosystem is fragmented, with numerous players including Tata Power, Charge+Zone, and PlugNGo, providing EV charging solutions, however, they often work in silos, each with their own apps, interfaces, and pricing. Charles Nadar saw this gap and founded EVJoints to make locating and using charging points seamless for EV users.

Charge up:

• Bootstrapped with Rs 30 lakh from Nadar’s personal savings, the Mumbai-based startup EVJoints offers a mobile app for finding and booking charging stations, tracking real-time availability, and planning routes more efficiently.
• The EVJoints app offers a Trip Planner feature, which takes into account the user’s location, battery level, and destination to suggest optimal charging stops along the way.
• The startup’s platform links EV users to a growing network of over 6,000+ public charging points, spanning metros including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Pune, as well as highways, malls, and residential complexes.

Inspiration

Empowering girls’ education in rural India

In rural India, where opportunities for girls are often limited by social norms and economic barriers, SwaTaleem Foundation is quietly scripting a story of change. 

Founded in 2018, SwaTaleem Foundation is working to ensure that adolescent girls from marginalised communities not only stay in school but also imagine a life filled with choices and opportunities.

New hope:

• The idea for SwaTaleem—meaning “owning your education”—took shape during Ananya and Vaibhav’s time as volunteers at IIT Kanpur’s Prayas Initiative. 
• SwaTaleem Foundation chose to work with Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas because they are located in educationally backward blocks where the need for intervention is the greatest.
• At the heart of SwaTaleem’s work lies its flagship programme, Saheli Ki Udaan, which focuses on strengthening foundational learning, critical skills, and English literacy for adolescent girls. 

News & updates

• In reverse: The US economy just had its worst quarter since 2022 as President Donald Trump’s significant policy changes unnerved consumers and businesses. Gross domestic product registered at an annualised rate of -0.3% in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
• Trade tensions: Microsoft President Brad Smith says the US tech giant is committed to respecting European laws, even though it may not always agree with them. Smith’s comments are part of a charm offensive Microsoft is making in Europe this week after tensions between the US and European Union ratcheted up in recent weeks over Trump’s tariffs.
• Smartphone ban: Finland has passed legislation to restrict the use of phones and other mobile devices during the school day amid fears over their impact on student wellbeing and learning. Under the changes, which were approved by the Finnish parliament on Tuesday and will come into effect on August 1, mobile devices will be heavily restricted during lesson times.

What substance was used in early thermometers before mercury?

Answer: Brandy.

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