ideaForge revenue soared 437%. So why is it losing money?

Dear reader,

Claude is getting a watermark. Anthropic says it will watermark AI-generated text and files to comply with the EU’s AI transparency rules. The watermark will stay with the text even when it’s copied and pasted, and will apply across Claude’s products. The move comes as more AI platforms look to make AI-generated content easier to spot amid growing regulatory scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Nvidia is doubling down on open-source AI, releasing its first such model since CEO Jensen Huang publicly backed open models. The new Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is lightweight enough to run on a single PC GPU and is free for companies to download, use and modify. For Nvidia, the open-source push could drive greater demand for its GPUs as businesses opt for lower-cost AI models. 

In other news, IBM and AI startup Together AI have signed a $240 million multi-year deal to build a large-scale AI computing cluster on IBM Cloud using Nvidia systems. The cluster will provide inference for open-source AI models, which are gaining traction as businesses look to cut AI costs and address growing concerns around cybersecurity risks linked to proprietary AI models.

Back home, Discovered Materials, a deeptech startup founded by IIT-Madras alumni Advaith Sridhar and Akash Ramdas, has raised $9 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed India, with participation from Y Combinator, Peak XV Partners, and angel investors. The startup is developing AI agents to discover new materials for semiconductor chips, aiming to address challenges such as heat management and enable more efficient chip designs. 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• ideaForge slips into Q1 loss 
• Nexular’s bet on smarter, connected EVs

Here’s your trivia for today: Which city has the most data centres in India?

The Big Story 

ideaForge slips into Q1 loss 

Drone maker ideaForge Technology slipped back into the red in Q1 FY27, as global supply chain disruptions continued to hit component availability. Revenue, however, jumped 437% year-on-year to Rs 68.58 crore, while the company entered the fiscal with an order book of more than Rs 300 crore.

Why it matters:

• The short answer: Global supply chain delays ate into margins, turning a massive revenue bump into quarterly losses, despite narrowing year-on-year loss to Rs 2.6 crore in Q1 FY27. A clear sign that the recovery remains uneven. 
• Ongoing component shortages have affected operations, with the company targeting completion of its opening FY27 order book by Q3 in line with customer timelines.
• With more than Rs 300 crore worth of orders in hand, the key question is increasingly about execution. How quickly can ideaForge convert that backlog into revenue without supply chain constraints eating into margins and timelines?

In-Focus

Nexular’s bet on smarter, connected EVs

India’s EV market is expanding rapidly, but many manufacturers still lack visibility into what happens to their vehicles once they leave the factory. Mumbai-based Nexular is building a connected technology stack that combines in-vehicle hardware, cloud software, and AI to help EV makers monitor vehicles, manage after-sales operations, and unlock new financing and mobility services.

Key takeaways: 

• Nexular’s hardware and software give manufacturers real-time visibility into vehicle location, battery health, usage, and faults, while enabling remote-control and after-sales functions.
• The platform can support financing, leasing, rentals, battery swapping, and other services by using real-time vehicle data to reduce risk and automate processes.
• With three OEM contracts worth over $400,000 and a pipeline covering more than one million vehicles across India, Southeast Asia, and Africa, Nexular is looking to establish itself as a connectivity infrastructure provider for the growing EV ecosystem. 

News & updates

• Meta: Meta’s smart glasses are facing growing pushback, with courts in England and Wales now banning them over concerns they could be used to secretly record proceedings. 
• Oil prices: Oil prices neared $90 a barrel on Tuesday as negotiations between the United States and Iran ​over a peace deal and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz hit an impasse, while uncertainty over the global inflation ‌outlook tempered a rise in stocks. 

Which city has the most data centres in India?

Answer: Mumbai

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