Prime Minister Narendra Modi says India has undergone a cultural shift as risk-taking and entrepreneurship gain respect, with over 2 lakh DPIIT-recognised startups now making the country the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem and drawing founders from Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and villages into new technologies and emerging industries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urges Indian startups to build indigenous AI on local servers as Startup India marks a decade, touting 200,000 recognized ventures, 125 unicorns, over 38,000 GPUs under the IndiaAI Mission, and reforms like the Fund of Funds and Jan Vishwas Act to fuel the next phase of growth.
SEBI is using its Sudarshan AI system to pull nearly 100,000 unregistered finfluencer videos, tighten rules for intermediaries, and roll out SebiCheck to protect India’s retail investors from unverified stock tips and digital market abuse.
OpenAI debuts ChatGPT Translate, a contextual AI translation tool, just as Meta’s new WhatsApp rules force the shutdown of general-purpose AI bots, affecting over 50 million users and rivals like Perplexity AI, Luzia, and Poke. Regulators in the EU, Italy, and Brazil are now examining Meta’s policy shift.
Emversity raises $30M led by Premji Invest to bridge the gap between education and employability in India’s higher education system.
Mumbai-based proptech startup Truva has raised $9 million (₹78 crore) in equity and venture debt from Stellaris Venture Partners, Orios Venture Partners, Stride Ventures, and prominent angels to scale its TruIQ-powered resale housing platform beyond Mumbai into Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, after facilitating over ₹500 crore in transactions.
GrowthPal has raised $2.6 million to scale its AI-powered M&A copilot, helping corporate development teams surface off-market targets, compress deal timelines, and bring more structure to mid-market and early-stage deal sourcing across global markets.
Tamil Nadu’s export-led economy faces rising risks as US tariffs on Indian goods threaten nearly 30 lakh jobs, hit Tiruppur’s knitwear hub, and deepen fiscal pressures from GST revenue losses and delayed central funds.
India unveils NIDMS, an AI-powered National IED Data Management System built by NSG and partners to unify bomb data, enable predictive analytics, and enhance rapid response capabilities across the country.
Google Cloud launches Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience at NRF 2026, bringing multimodal AI shopping agents to major retailers including Kroger, Lowe’s, Woolworths, and Papa Johns, while emphasizing retailer-owned AI ecosystems and expanded partnerships with Home Depot and Papa Johns for nationwide AI-assisted ordering in 2026.
