Big cheques remain scarce for startups; Trademark dispute between Matrimony.com & Jodi365
VC inflow remains rangebound, and one-off large deals are propping up India's startup funding. Meanwhile, in a trademark dispute between Matrimony.com and Jodi365, the Supreme Court has asked the companies to explore settlement.
Dear Reader,
The demand for renewable energy is rising. So is the need to ramp up storage.
As India expands its renewable energy capacity to meet growing demand, there is an immediate need to scale up storage systems, say industry stakeholders. Batteries and other storage technologies are crucial to tackle the intermittency risk of solar power and unlock its growth potential. Import dependence can no longer be cited as a reason for slow deployment, they argue.
Some Indian companies have shown how a crisis can become an opportunity.
A book by authors Saurabh Mukherjea and Salil Desai explores how five Indian companies—Bajaj Finance, Titan, Dr Lal PathLabs, Divi’s Laboratories, and Tata Elxsi—not only withstood disruption but also turned it into an enduring source of strength.
The book titled The Art of Enduring: How Great Companies Turn Crisis into Opportunity examines how these leading companies navigated a series of disruptions between 2015 and 2025, including demonetisation, GST rollout, pandemic, trade wars, and global supply-chain disruptions.
And now for something that sounds straight out of science fiction: a robot has outrun Usain Bolt.
A humanoid named Lightning has run the 100 metres in 9.32 seconds, surpassing the 17-year-old world record of 9.58 seconds in men’s 100m set by Bolt at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin. Lightning, developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor, attained a peak speed of 14.5 metres per second during a test event for the second World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing.
Finally, here’s some food for thought. Is AI aiding thought or replacing it? This episode of The Most Interesting Thing in AI with author Steven Johnson discusses the ethics of AI-assisted writing and what happens when AI gets as good as humans at writing.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Scarcity of big cheques for Indian startups
- Trademark dispute between Matrimony.com & Jodi365
Here’s your trivia for today: What was Play-Doh originally used as? (Scroll down for the answer)
Weekly Funding Roundup
VC inflow remains rangebound
Venture capital funding usually relies on large deals for momentum. But with big-ticket rounds becoming scarce, India’s startup funding is increasingly being propped up by one-off transactions.
Key takeaways:
- VC funding in August so far has shown no appreciable upward movement, and solitary large deals are making the difference. Without these outlier deals, the overall funding would have been much smaller.
- Each of the three weeks of August has seen one large transaction lifting the overall funding: River Mobility’s $120 million in the first week, $93 million raised by Yulu in the second week, followed by Navi's fundraise in the third week.
- The rest of the deals were largely smaller-value transactions.
Trademark tussle
Explore settlement, SC tells Matrimony.com, Jodi365
In a trademark dispute between Matrimony.com and Jodi365, the Supreme Court has asked the companies to explore settlement. The apex court kept Matrimony.com’s plea pending after the company proposed renaming its matchmaking app ‘Jodi Matrimony’, giving the two sides an opportunity to settle the dispute.
Key takeaways:
- A bench comprising Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe expressed its disinclination to interfere with a Madras High Court judgment restraining Matrimony.com from using ‘Jodii’ for its matchmaking app, according to Bar & Bench.
- Instead of dismissing Matrimony.com’s plea, however, the court agreed to keep it pending while the two companies discuss a possible settlement.
- The development comes after Matrimony.com challenged an August 11 ruling of the Madras High Court that barred it from using ‘Jodii’ or any other mark found to be deceptively similar to Jodi365.
News & updates
- Accelerator backing: Legaltech nonprofit Adalat AI is now backed by startup accelerator Y Combinator. It has been selected for Y Combinator’s Fall 2026 batch. Adalat AI says it is the first nonprofit YC has backed in nearly five years, and the first Indian-founded nonprofit in YC’s history.
- AI costs: NVIDIA plans to raise prices for some of its largest customers by at least 15%. The price increase could take effect on systems shipped next year.
What you should watch out for
- Earnings: NVIDIA will release its second-quarter fiscal 2027 financial results on August 26.
- IPO: Multi-speciality healthcare provider ABH Healthcare’s Rs 34.98 crore IPO will open today (August 24) for subscription.
- Tennis: The US Open, the fourth and final Grand Slam event of the 2026 tennis calendar, gets underway at Flushing Meadows, New York City.
What was Play-Doh originally used as?
Answer: As wallpaper cleaner to remove soot and dirt
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