Startup News and Updates: Daily Roundup (September 18)

From Investorant which enables fractional ownership in the F&B industry, to IBM’s collaboration with BharatGen, YourStory brings today’s headlines that highlight significant developments across industries.

Featured stories 

Bengaluru-based Investorant enables fractional ownership in the F&B industry 

Founded by Guru Shivaram, Amrit Hemdev, and Salman Sait in 2021, Investorant is an investment platform that enables fractional ownership of curated food and beverage (F&B) concepts.

“We enable talent to have their own spaces without any other stress, such as raising funds, building the project, and others. They get creative freedom, the investors get absolute transparency on how their money is being spent, CEO Shivaram says. 

The startup has established three concepts so far—Whisky Samba in Hyderabad, Spirit Forward and Una Hacienda in Bengaluru. According to Shivaram, all three establishments have been profitable from day one. 

Bengaluru-based Investorant is looking to open three more establishments by the end of this year. 

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Iconic Wealth wants to redefine wealth management in India 

Mumbai-based firm Iconic Wealth is betting on a mix of technology and human expertise to make wealth management inclusive, not just for the UHNIs, but also for the growing affluent class. 

Founded by Dharmendra Jain, Srikanth Subramanian and Shobhit Mathur, Iconic Wealth started operations in March 2024. The firm has scaled rapidly and has reported assets under management worth Rs 50,7 billion at the end of the first quarter of FY2026, recording a quarter-on-quarter growth of 33.6%. 

A part of Angel One, Iconic Wealth is leveraging technology to enhance the rigour in its research, where it can generate new insights on investments. It also aims to deepen the expertise of its bankers through technology. It has over 1,000 clients across nine Indian cities. 

Read more. 

Funding news 

Atomicwork announces strategic investment from Okta Ventures 

Agentic service management platform Atomicwork has announced a strategic investment from Okta Ventures to strengthen its mission to reinvent enterprise IT. Through this partnership, Atomicwork and Okta will enable IT teams to deliver personalised, proactive support across every business app, channel, and device, making enterprise IT both seamless and secure. 

According to a release from Atomicwork, its AI-native universal agent has reduced ticket volumes by up to 60% for IT and service teams, with omnichannel and multimodal agentic AI, while improving end-user satisfaction by more than 25%. 

AI chip firm Groq raises $750M at $6.9B valuation 

AI chip company Groq has raised $750 million at a valuation of $6.9 billion. The funding round was led by Disruptive, with participation from BlackRock, Neuberger Berman, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, and a major US West Coast mutual fund manager. 

Existing investors Samsung, Cisco, D1, Altimeter, 1789 Capital and Infinitium also participated in the round. 

The 2016-founded company’s technology is being used by more than two million developers and a wide array of Fortune 500 companies.  Groq had earlier raised $640 million in August last year, at a valuation of $2.8 billion. The company has managed to double its valuation in less than a year and has so far raised $3 billion in total.

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Supply6 raises Rs 9.1 Cr from Zeropearl VC 

D2C nutrition brand Supply6 has raised Rs 9.1 crore (or $1.1 million) in a seed round from Zeropearl VC. Kunal Shah, Ashutosh Valani, Priyank Shah and Yogesh Kabra have also participated in the round. 

The freshly raised round will be used to expand the product pipeline, fund clinical studies, and work on new product formats. Founded in 2020 by Vaibhav Bhandari and Rahul Jacob, Supply6 plans to deepen its D2C and quick-commerce distribution, prioritise selective international entry in high-supplement adoption regions including GCC and English-speaking markets. The brand also plans to strengthen its leadership roles across growth, strategy, and product development. 

Other news 

IBM collaborates with BharatGen to accelerate AI adoption 

IBM and BharatGen have entered into a collaboration to advance AI adoption in India.

Combining IBM’s expertise in data, governance, and model training with BharatGen’s sovereign LLMs, the partnership will build inclusive, India-focused AI models tailored to the country’s linguistic and cultural landscape. 

The collaboration aims to build and scale multimodal and language-specific AI models for sectors like education, agriculture, healthcare, banking, and citizen services. 

IBM and BharatGen will jointly develop solution templates for Indic use cases, demonstrations on Watsonx and OpenShift AI, and scalable data pipelines with Indic capabilities. They will implement IBM’s governance framework for responsible AI, establish new Indic benchmarks, and research emerging model architectures. 

EY launches 6th edition of campus innovation challenge

EY has launched the sixth edition of its flagship campus innovation challenge, Techathon 6.0 - Building Tomorrow’s Solutions for Today’s India. The challenge is focused on developing real-world solutions for India’s unique business, communities and citizen challenges, across the pharma, BFSI, auto, FMCG, retail and startup sectors. 

With the theme of ‘Agentic AI’, Techathon 6.0 is aimed at building autonomous systems that can adapt, take initiative, and make proactive decisions. Leading organisations, including Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero MotorCorp, Asian Paints, Tata Capital, and Firstsource, will collaborate with EY leaders in mentoring and offering students industry exposure.

Hoi and EaseMyTrip in partnership for rewards programme in airports

Travel-tech platforms Hoi and EasyMyTrip have entered into a partnership to launch a Smart Kiosk Rewards Programme. 

Available at Delhi, Hyderabad, and Goa airports, the programme allows passengers to skip queues by ordering through Hoi’s contactless kiosks while earning instant travel rewards. Each order provides a Rs 500 EaseMyTrip coupon via WhatsApp, with a monthly draw offering a ₹5,000 voucher. 

Running for three months, the initiative has already benefitted over 5,000 travellers, marking a new model for airport monetisation by merging dining, technology, and travel planning into a seamless experience.

Wingify enters Middle East and Africa, scales operations in US, Europe and APAC 

Wingify, parent company of SaaS platform VWO, has expanded into the Middle East and Africa as part of its global growth strategy. The company, which is already present in the United States, Europe, and APAC, is scaling operations in these markets to meet the rising enterprise demand for experimentation and personalisation solutions.

Over the past year, Wingify has reported profitable growth with annual recurring revenue reaching $60 million, driven by widespread enterprise adoption. To fuel its next phase, the company is adding 70 new roles worldwide and expanding its leadership bench: Devon Boyd will lead EMEA partnerships, while Dayo Murphy joins as UAE and MEA country manager. Nisha Sharma will strengthen US enterprise partnerships, and Bhavan Kochhar will head APAC sales.

Wingify serves 3,000-plus brands globally, including Disney, Decathlon, UNICEF, and Flynas.

Walmart India’s losses narrow to Rs 111 Cr, revenue up by 2.5% 

Walmart India Pvt Ltd, the Indian arm of Walmart Inc, reported a 2.5% rise in revenue to Rs 5,330 crore in FY25, up from Rs 5,200 crore last year. The company trimmed net loss to Rs 109.8 crore from Rs 154.1 crore, while EBITDA loss narrowed to Rs 19.2 crore versus Rs 51.2 crore in FY24. 

Expenses included Rs 4,975 crore for traded goods and Rs 139.4 crore in employee benefits. Despite accumulated losses swelling to Rs 3,895.3 crore, auditors issued an unqualified opinion, noting compliance lapses and ongoing tax disputes. 

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FinEdge crosses AUM of Rs 1,500 Cr

FinEdge, a digital wealth management and goal-based investing platform, has crossed Rs 1,500 crore in Assets Under Management (AUM). It has more than 20,000 clients spread across 1,800 cities in India and 90 countries worldwide. Headquartered in Gurugram, FinEdge has developed a bionic model that blends personalisation, technology and expert guidance to deliver investment outcomes. In 2012, it had an AUM of Rs 5 crore and aims to reach Rs 10,000 crore by 2030.

Blinkit-AI launches its operations

Blinkit-AI, a tech startup, launched its operations where the platform will provide access to over 50 AI models, which also includes ChatGPT, Midjourney, Perplexity and more. According to the startup, users can access the features of all these platforms and come with an in-built voice bot that can interpret multiple languages. Blinkit-AI also recently raised a seed round of funding of $1.2 million from Foliflex Cables.

Enlight Metals eyes Rs 400 Cr turnover in FY26

Enlight Metals, an online aggregator for metals, aims to cross a sales turnover of Rs 400 crore by March 2026, having reached Rs 150 crore in FY25. In the current year, the company has already supplied 40,000 metric tons of steel. It has set a target of supplying 1,00,000 metric tons annually by FY26 and aims to achieve more than Rs 1,200 crore in sales by FY27. To support this growth, Enlight is expanding its dark-store network beyond Pune and Mumbai to Aurangabad, Ahmedabad, and Bengaluru, with eight new facilities planned by FY26.

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