Adda Education forays into skilling; The startups shaping India’s AI agenda

Hello,

The bourses are busy with buzzing activity.

Payments startup Pine Labs has filed draft papers with SEBI for an IPO. The company plans to raise Rs 2,600 crore through a fresh issue of shares. Existing investors are looking to offload up to 147.8 million shares as part of the offer for sale.

The merchant commerce platform’s balance sheets are aligned for a public debut. Pine Labs turned profitable in the first nine months of FY25, posting a net profit of Rs 26.14 crore, a sharp turnaround from the Rs 151.63 crore loss reported in the same period last year, regulatory filings show.

Elsewhere, AI is gaining the upper hand when it comes to copyrights. 

In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a US judge has determined that Anthropic’s use of books by authors to train their AI model was acceptable. This would open the possibility for other AI companies to legally train their LLMs on copyrighted works.

Meanwhile, Meta is on a recruiting blitz. It has reportedly poached three OpenAI researchers after earlier reports of Mark Zuckerberg dangling $100 million compensation packages.

AI is also solving some decades-old problems. Researchers at the University of South Florida have designed a smart trap that uses AI to identify dangerous mosquitoes in real time.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Adda Education forays into skilling
• The startups shaping India’s AI agenda
• Nanotech solutions for India’s water woes

Here’s your trivia for today: Who coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in 1956?

Edtech

Adda Education forays into skilling

The need to upskill or reskill has never been greater, especially in domains with significant demand like data science, data analytics, digital marketing, and generative AI. This is the space that learning platform Adda is keen to tap into.

As it eyes a public listing, the learning platform is making a big splash into skilling, hoping to create an adda of sorts for people to acquire job-related skills in the private sector. To drive its next wave of growth, it has invested more than Rs 30 crore in skilling in the last six months, and a lot more is to come.

Focus on upskilling:

• Adda is channelling its skilling efforts into technology and BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance) with PrepInsta, which offers a self-learning online service to help final-year students prepare for assessments and interviews for tech jobs, and the launch of the Career247 online skilling platform.
• Alongside its online offerings, the edtech firm is also looking to establish an offline presence for its skilling initiatives. It is planning to set up two physical centres of excellence, focused on banking and artificial intelligence.
• Adda Education’s Founder and CEO Anil Nagar expects the skilling vertical to contribute 20-25% to the group’s revenue. He sees this growing to 30-40% in the coming years, as the company moves closer to its IPO.

Funding Alert

Startup: Wiom

Amount: $40M

Round: Equity

Startup: ShopOS

Amount: $20M

Round: Undisclosed

Startup: Flipspaces

Amount: Rs 50 Cr

Round: Primary and secondary capital

Interview

The startups shaping India’s AI agenda

The story of India’s AI is often subsumed in talk around billion-dollar valuations and building the next sovereign LLM. However, behind the scenes, a quiet revolution is brewing, with Indian innovators solving critical problems and building sustainable solutions on the ground.  

This forms the crux of the conversation of four experts in the AI sector with YourStory’s Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma, as they explain how they are using algorithms to create real impact in agriculture and healthcare. 

AI revolution:

• Wadhwani AI, a non-profit AI institute, ‘AI’ is intentionally understated, so that the focus is on problem-solving. It has delivered 25 real-world solutions so far across agriculture, healthcare, education, and other sectors, with AI tools like ‘Shishu Maapan’. 
• Bengaluru-based Cropin’s cloud platform ingests satellite feeds, weather updates, agronomic records, and on-ground images to generate insights on crop health, yields, and risk factors. So far, the startup has digitised 30 million acres of farmland, benefitting over 7 million farmers around the world. 
• Personal experiences of dealing with suicide and depression in their family and friend circles led Ramakant Vempati to build a conversational agent that could offer immediate and accessible mental-health support. Today, it has helped more than 7 million people in 100 countries via 500 million conversations.

Startup

Nanotech solutions for India’s water woes

India faces a water crisis on multiple fronts: polluted rivers, unsafe drinking water, inefficient irrigation, and energy-intensive treatment systems. 

Manipal-based deeptech startup Neer Shakti Systems is tackling these problems head-on through its breakthrough nanobubble technology, which attaches to and neutralises positively charged pollutants like bacteria, viruses, and heavy metals.

Bharat ke Innovators

Transforming branding and tech across India

Founded in 2018, Brand Radiator provides comprehensive IT services, campaign management, and event production for corporate, government, and social sector clients.

India’s IoT healthtech pioneer

Bibhuti Bikramaditya and Minakshi Kumari co-founded Smartway Electronics in Patna, Bihar in 2020, to fill the need for indigenous, reliable medical technology. The startup developed India’s first smart pulse oximeter integrated with an IR thermometer.

News & updates

• Love hurts: Dating app Bumble is axing almost a third of its workforce, as it struggles to grow and investors sour on its prospects. In a note to staff, chief executive Whitney Wolfe Herd said she was responding to pressures facing the company, as the dating industry faces an “inflection point”.
• Tesla troubles: Europeans still aren't buying Teslas as sales plunged for a fifth month in a row in May, a blow to investors who had hoped anger toward Elon Musk would have faded by now. Tesla sales fell 28% last month in 30 European countries.
• M&A machine: Japan is driving Asia’s M&A rebound in 2025 with a record $232 billion worth of deals in the first half, and bankers expect the trend to sustain, fueled by multi-billion-dollar take-private arrangements, outbound investments and private equity activity, according to LSEG.

Who coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in 1956?

Answer: John McCarthy, a professor at Dartmouth College, who introduced the term at a workshop on thinking machines. 

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