Transforming desert livelihoods in Rajasthan; Cosentus’ India centre: A pillar of growth
Aakriti Srivastava's Bahula Naturals works with over 4,000 pastoralist households in Rajasthan, turning camel milk and desert produce into premium food products while ensuring women are at the centre of the value chain. Meanwhile, revenue cycle management company Cosentus is betting on India.
Hello,
It’s hard to keep SpaceX out of the news.
The aerospace company plans to acquire software firm Anysphere for $60 billion to boost its presence in the enterprise AI market. This announcement comes just days after its blockbuster market debut.
Anysphere is the company that developed the AI coding agent Cursor.
Elsewhere, in China, ecommerce giant Alibaba has unveiled its first suite of AI models for robots. This comes amid a shift in focus in the Chinese tech industry—from chatbots to agents that can carry out complex tasks and make machines smarter.
Moving on, there’s a big leadership change at Bigbasket. Co-founder Hari Menon has stepped down as CEO of the Tata Group-backed online grocery and quick-commerce company. Amazon India executive Amit Nanda will take over as the business prepares for its next phase of growth.
Meanwhile, early-stage VC firm YourNest Venture Capital has marked the final close of its YourNest Continuum Fund I at Rs 400 crore. The fund supports high-performing startups with continued capital support. The startups in the portfolio include Miko, Dozee, Thriwe, Opkey, Twid, and Exponent Energy.
In other much-awaited news, TechSparks is back!
YourStory’s flagship startup-tech summit will be held in Bengaluru from October 13 to 15 around the theme ‘The New Tech Order’.
Catch all the excitement and innovation as founders, investors, developers, policymakers, and innovators from across India explore how technology is reshaping industries, institutions, and economies—and what comes next.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Transforming desert livelihoods in Rajasthan
- Cosentus’ India centre: A pillar of growth
Here’s your trivia for today: Where does the name ‘Lego’ come from?
Women Entrepreneur
Transforming desert livelihoods in Rajasthan
Founded by Aakriti Srivastava, Bahula Naturals works with over 4,000 pastoralist households across Bikaner, Jaisalmer, and Jaipur in Rajasthan, turning camel milk and desert produce into premium food products while ensuring women are at the centre of the value chain.
Srivastava is based in Bajju. The venture also has an office in Bikaner city, which handles warehousing and market dispatch. 95% of its team are youth from the same villages integrated into its value chain.
Key takeaways:
- What drew Srivastava to pastoralist communities was a contradiction she witnessed repeatedly in Rajasthan’s deserts. Camels, livestock, and nomadic life are central to the state’s cultural identity, yet the pastoralists who sustain that heritage often remain invisible and undervalued.
- Bahula is a “good food company” that brings toxic-free food from resilient regions. It works with agro-pastoralist producers to ensure they have the right access to information, tools, and input services needed to eliminate chemical use and grow clean.
- “We are expanding from primarily B2B into offline experiential retail, starting with Rajasthan and then moving across India… On the camel milk side, we initiated exports last year and are looking to expand into additional international markets in this category. Third, we want Bahula to become synonymous with trustworthy food, so growing in ecommerce in parallel is a key priority,” says Srivastava.
Funding Alert
Startup: SolarSquare
Amount: $53M
Round: Series C
Startup: TruNativ
Amount: $30M
Round: Series B
Enterprise
Cosentus’ India centre: A pillar of growth
As healthcare providers across the United States grapple with mounting administrative complexity, revenue cycle management company Cosentus is betting on a combination of AI and human expertise to solve some of the industry's most persistent challenges.
Key takeaways:
- The US-headquartered company, which began as a third-party revenue cycle management services provider, has evolved into a technology-led healthcare operations platform.
- It has developed its own proprietary AI tools and has steadily expanded its presence in both the US and India.
- The company operates centres in Gurugram and Noida, which together represent the Cosentus' largest workforce footprint. India’s deep talent pool, young workforce, and growing technology capabilities make it central to the company's long-term strategy, says Cosentus CEO G S Bhalla.
News & updates
- Cybersecurity product: Japan’s SoftBank Group has launched a cybersecurity product in partnership with OpenAI to combat breaches enabled by AI. The ‘Patching as a Service’ product will be rolled out in Japan through a joint venture between SoftBank’s domestic telecoms arm SoftBank Corp and OpenAI.
- Uneven economy: China’s economy showed increasing unevenness in May, with retail sales falling for the first time in over three years and investment slumping, while industrial output picked up pace.
- EV demand: Registrations of new battery EVs and hybrid vehicles globally rose 3% year on year to 1.8 million in May, according to data from consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Global demand for EVs rose for the third consecutive month with subsidies and high petrol prices accelerating the shift.
Where does the name ‘Lego’ come from?
Answer: ‘Lego’ is derived from the Danish phrase ‘leg godt’ which means ‘play well’.
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