Startup news and updates: Daily roundup (August 8, 2025)

From Zepto rolling out 10-minute delivery of medicines in four cities after a year-long pilot to Reliance writing off its $200 million investment in Dunzo, YourStory brings today’s headlines that highlight significant developments across the ecosystem.

Featured stories

Inside India’s push for building indigenous AI models

India is accelerating its push for indigenous AI, with government-backed startups building language and voice models rooted in the country’s 121 languages, cultural nuances, and local data.

Flagship efforts from Sarvam AI, Gnani.ai, CoRover.ai, Fractal, and Ola Krutrim signal a shift from AI consumption to AI creation, aiming for sovereignty, inclusivity, and global competitiveness—much like UPI’s impact on digital payments.

This momentum will take centre stage at TechSparks 2025 (Nov 6–8), where leaders will explore how Indic AI is reshaping India’s tech landscape and setting global benchmarks. Read more. 

Bhumi, Samiksha Pednekar launch natural mineral water brand Backbay

Actor Bhumi Pednekar and her sister Samiksha have launched Backbay, a clean beverage brand and its product, Backbay Aqua, natural mineral water from the Himalayas, packaged in sustainable paper cartons.

The idea emerged from the Pednekar family's decade-long journey toward sustainability. “Very early on, we quit using single-use plastic as much as possible. Every time I had to drink water from a plastic bottle, it would really bother me. There were just no options available,” explains Bhumi. Read more.

OpenAI rolls out GPT-5, eyes India as potential largest market

OpenAI has officially launched the much-awaited GPT-5, its most advanced large language model (LLM) to date. The AI firm on Thursday announced that it is making the model available to all users, including those on the free tier of ChatGPT. 

The latest AI model brings major improvements in reasoning and performance across various tasks such as writing, coding, and healthcare applications. It also unites and surpasses OpenAI’s previous breakthroughs in frontier AI, spanning 4o, OpenAI o-series reasoning, agents, and advanced math⁠ capabilities. Read more. 

How NatWest’s India GCC is leading the innovation

NatWest Group, the UK-focused bank serving over 20 million customers, has its second-largest employee base outside the UK in India.

The bank’s India operations function as its Global Capability Centre (GCC), spread across three locations—Gurugram, Chennai, and Bengaluru. The India GCC of NatWest is playing a pivotal role in enabling the digitisation framework of the bank, and this is corroborated by the fact that 97% of its new retail accounts were opened through digital channels.

In an interview with EnterpriseStory, Dhiraj Anand, Head of Retail, Digital X and Retail Banking Operations India at NatWest Group India, said, “Our focus remains on delivering innovation with purpose, operational excellence, and customer-centric outcomes at scale.” Read more.

How Dial4242 is speeding up medical emergency response across India

Co-founded by Jeetendra Lalwani, a seasoned marketer; Nilesh Mahambre, an IT industry veteran; and Atin Verma, a telecom professional with nearly three decades of experience, the Dial4242 app enables instant ambulance booking, real-time tracking, and 24x7 support.

Dial4242 partners with local operators to improve response times and reduce cancellations. It trains the drivers, charges no commission, and ensures the right ambulance, Basic Life Support (BLS) or Advanced Life Support (ALS), is dispatched within a minute. Read more.

Latest news

Reliance writes off its $200M investment in Dunzo

Reliance Retail, the consumer arm of Reliance Industries, has officially written down its Rs 1,645 crore investment in hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo, according to the conglomerate's annual report.

This comes after Dunzo, once an early entrant in the hyperlocal delivery and logistics space, lost its edge in the cutthroat quick commerce market.

Dunzo shut operations earlier this year in January after its app and website went offline, as the last of its remaining co-founders and CEO, Kabeer Biswas, left the company. Biswas went on to join Flipkart to lead the ecommerce major's quick commerce operations, Flipkart Minutes. Read more. 

Zepto rolls out 10-minute medicine delivery in four cities

Quick commerce player Zepto launched Zepto Pharmacy, a 10-minute medicine delivery service, in selected areas of Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, and Hyderabad, CEO and Co-founder Aadit Palicha said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.

Zepto has spent the past 12 months running the service at a small scale to fine-tune customer experience, supply chain, and compliance processes. Palicha said, "Our objective is to keep operational standards extremely high and not scale too rapidly given the complexity of this category." Read more. 

Swiggy, FirstCry add $160M to SoftBank's notional gains in Q1; Ola Electric drags

Food delivery giant Swiggy and omnichannel retailer FirstCry emerged as the top Indian performers in SoftBank’s Vision Fund portfolio for the April–June quarter, contributing nearly $160 million in unrealised investment gains.

Swiggy led the charge with a $139 million increase in fair value, as its stock climbed 21% during the quarter. FirstCry added another $20 million to SoftBank’s books, following a 5% rise in its share price, according to the investment banker's latest earnings presentation. Read more. 

Infibeam's Q1 profit falls 12% as expenses outpace revenue surge

Infibeam Avenues reported a 12.3% decline in quarterly profit as higher expenses outpaced revenue growth. Profit after tax attributable to owners fell 12.3% year-on-year to Rs 61.25 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2025 (Q1 FY26) from Rs 69.85 crore a year earlier.

Revenue from operations rose 71.8% to Rs 1,280.21 crore from Rs 745.06 crore a year ago, while total income increased 69.3% to Rs 1,306.51 crore from Rs 771.51 crore. Read more.

Icertis promotes Anand Subbaraman as CEO, Samir Bodas to be Executive Chairman

AI-powered contract intelligence provider Icertis promoted Chief Operating Officer Anand Subbaraman to the position of Chief Executive Officer. The company said the current CEO and Co-founder, Samir Bodas, will take on the role of Executive Chairman after leading the company for more than 15 years.

Founded by Bodas and Monish Darda in 2009, Icertis has made nearly $350 million in annual recurring revenue as of now. The firm counts more than one-third of Fortune 100 companies among its customers, and has partnerships with major cloud providers and system integrators. Read more.

NxtGen launches sovereign agentic AI platform ‘M’

Sovereign cloud and AI infrastructure provider NxtGen has launched “M”, an open agentic AI platform designed to execute tasks and integrate real-world workflows.

The platform is built on open-source systems and is hosted entirely on NxtGen’s domestic AI infrastructure, the company said in a statement.

Unlike conventional AI chatbots, the company said it is action-oriented, enabling automation of tasks such as booking appointments, ordering food, scheduling medical consultations, or managing enterprise workflows. This is done through their own agentic middleware platform, which connects users to services. Read more.

Navi Technologies rebrands as Navi Limited to reflect broader financial services focus

Navi Technologies Limited has changed its name to Navi Limited, in a move the company says reflects its transition from a technology-led disruptor to a full-service financial services platform.

“The new name fits who we are today. Not only are we a technology provider, we are a full-fledged destination for financial services for our customers,” said Sachin Bansal, Founder and Executive Chairman of Navi Group. “It signals both simplification and scale — two ideas core to our philosophy.” Read more.

Funding news

Ace Blend raises pre-Series A from Fireside Ventures

Ace Blend, a science-backed nutrition startup, raised an undisclosed investment from Fireside Ventures.

Ace has been revamping India's supplement landscape through its partnership with Bio-gen Extracts since 2022. With 25+ years of global expertise, Bio-gen's clinical-grade ingredients and extraction technologies have been the backbone of Ace Blend's results-driven formulations. 

Other News

Mirae Asset Mutual Fund introduces two new fund offers

Mirae Asset Investment Managers launched new fund offers for two fund of funds—Mirae Asset Multi Factor Passive FoF and Mirae Asset Gold Silver Passive FoF.

These funds of funds are designed to provide investors with exposure to factor-based domestic equity ETFs and precious metals, i.e., gold and silver ETFs, respectively, through a disciplined systematic approach.

Zomato onboards Shah Rukh Khan as its new brand ambassador

Zomato onboarded Indian film actor Shah Rukh Khan as its new brand ambassador. The announcement follows Khan’s recent appearance in Zomato’s latest campaign, Fuel Your Hustle, which celebrates the quiet grind behind some of India’s most celebrated names.

This collaboration will see Khan featured prominently across Zomato’s multi-platform marketing initiatives, including television commercials, digital campaigns, print and outdoor activations.

(This article will be updated with the latest news throughout the day.)