Rebound in venture capital inflow; How Addverb built an intralogistics biz

Hello,

There’s a new AI startup in town. 

Serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia has launched Neo, an AI-native work platform. He has committed $30 million of his own capital to Neo, which is Turakhia’s fifth entrepreneurial venture. 

Neo combines work management with AI assistance, collaborative execution, and autonomous agents. The platform also supports documents, spreadsheets, diagrams, and real-time collaboration within a unified workspace.

In other news, after DeepSeek’s AI model, another Chinese model is grabbing attention. GLM-5.2, launched last month by Beijing startup Z.ai, is creating waves with its coding and agentic capabilities, at a fraction of the cost of American offerings. Some experts are even calling this a “mini DeepSeek moment”. 

Meanwhile, amid regulatory scrutiny and concerns of fraud, WhatsApp has defended its upcoming user name feature. It says only legitimate account owners can claim well-known public figure names, while rejecting reports that people are reserving popular user names.

Lastly, latest science indicates that your phone is doing more harm to your body than you thought. Your devices could be causing neck wrinkles, weakening your vision, and affecting your hand grip. They appear like subtle effects, but some of these problems could eventually result in cognitive decay or something much worse. 

So, do something now before you develop a ‘phone body’.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Rebound in venture capital inflow 
• How Addverb built an intralogistics biz

Here’s your trivia for today: Which classic book inspired the name of Starbucks?

Funding 

Rebound in venture capital inflow

Venture capital funding into Indian startups for the first six months of the year touched $6.9 billion, raising hopes that capital inflow will surpass 2025 levels by the end of the year.

VC funding rose 21% in the first half of 2026, largely driven by a late surge in large deals in June, putting the ecosystem on track to cross the total funding recorded in 2025.

Key takeaways: 

• The total VC funding in the first six months of the year was $6.9 billion, up from $5.7 billion in the corresponding period of 2025, as per YourStory Research. Compared to the second half of 2025, i,e, July to December period, funding was up 9%.
• The number of deals for the first half of 2026 stood at 584, which is lower compared to the 621 deals reported in the first half of 2025. This shows that value per deal has certainly increased and this is a positive sign.
• The spike in VC inflow was largely driven by funding deals of CRED and Sarvam during June, where the total funding crossed $1 billion on a weekly basis for the first time this year

<Funding Alert>

Startup: BatX 

Amount: Rs 105 Cr 

Round: Series A

Startup: Age Care Labs

Amount: Rs 85 Cr

Round: Series B1

In-focus

How Addverb built an intralogistics biz

Noida-based Addverb has grown alongside India's warehouse automation industry, expanding from a five-member team to more than 1,000 employees and over 300 clients worldwide. 

CEO Sangeet Kumar says, “When we started, automation was mostly done by large corporations in consumer goods. Over the years, we have taken steps to educate the market on the benefits of automation and how it helps them in their productivity and reliability.”

Key takeaways: 

• The company has expanded beyond traditional warehouse automation to automated guided vehicles, autonomous mobile robots, and, more recently, general-purpose humanoid robots.
• Over the past decade, Addverb has worked with more than 300 clients, including Reliance, Flipkart, Unilever, and ITC. Alongside its robotics hardware, the company has developed software for different industries and warehouse environments. 
• Last year, Addverb reported an annual revenue of around Rs 660 crore. It is targeting Rs 1,300 crore this year. About half its revenue comes from India, while the remaining comes from international markets. 

News & updates

• Marketing campaigns: This summer, US automakers are using a combination of the nation’s 250th birthday and World Cup matches taking place in America in their marketing campaigns to rev up patriotism. 
• EV sales: Tesla’s China-made electric vehicle sales rose for an eighth month in June, supported by an extended ​recovery in the US automaker’s European sales.
• Court ruling: Europe’s top court has upheld Google’s fine of around 4.1 billion euros ($4.67 billion) over alleged anti-competitive practices. In 2018, the European Commission slapped Google with the record-breaking penalty on the grounds that it abused Android’s mobile dominance.

Which classic book inspired the name of Starbucks?

Answer: Moby Dick

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