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Thursday, January 8, 2026
TopicIndian startups

Topic: Indian startups

Creativity is a crime in India. Let’s accept vegan ice cream as the only honest innovation

There’s something deliciously mordant about minister Piyush Goyal standing before India’s most successful non-conformists, only to scold them for conforming a little too successfully.

Start-up funding in Karnataka drops 24% in 2024, while India sees signs of recovery with 5.4% uptick

According to Tracxn’s Karnataka Tech Annual Report 2024, the start-up hub raised $3.7 billion. It is also a staggering 68% fall in funding compared to $11.7 billion raised in 2022.

PM Modi marks StartupIndia’s 9th anniversary, calls it ‘a landmark’

Modi said the government has “left no stone unturned” in encouraging entrepreneurship.

ITC partners with Dept for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade to boost Indian startups

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) will see ITC deploy startup solutions in various sectors, including digital platforms for manufacturing execution systems (MES).

India’s start-up funding winter continues, with current quarter seeing lowest investments in 3 yrs

Though India saw funding numbers rise a modest 6% in calendar year 2024 when compared to last year, overall decline since 2021 appears to be a matter of concern for Indian companies.

These are the Bengaluru startups bringing AI and farmers together

Agritech startups like Fyllo, AgWise, and BeePrecise are revolutionising farming across India, offering farmers in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana AI-driven solutions.

Goa isn’t just a party capital, it is a start-up hub too. And women are driving it

Goa is among India’s top states for female-led startups, with over a third run by women—well above national average of 18%. Ease of doing business & work-life balance are big draws.

India’s millet millionaires are powering a food revolution with bajra bars, sorghum noodles

A growing ecosystem of entrepreneurs, evangelists, and incubators is pushing hard to make millets trendy, tasty, and thrifty. Hyderabad is leading the way.

Portable MRI, water from air—Indian deep tech startups thriving with incubators, govt funding

Uravu Labs makes water from air, Saaf Biogas makes zero-emission gas & Voxelgrids has built the first made-in-India MRI. Innovation thrives in intersection of academia, entrepreneurship, and govt funding.

Competition Commission is Indian startups’ bugbear. It’s also causing global embarrassment

The DSM-Firmenich merger was just one of the 20-odd deals worth $1.5 billion pending before the CCI last year. Some experts blame the commission for trying to be too 'industry friendly'.

On Camera

MEA should stop living in dread of Trump. We’ve lived through Nixon before

Donald Trump seems to have rejected the old assumptions. He does not care that India is the world’s largest democracy. As for the Indian market, he wants access on his own terms.

500% tariffs ahead for India? Trump’s lined up a big bad Bill for countries buying Russian oil

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says bill will be 'well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent'.

India’s defence sky gets a solar boost: Army orders iDEX solar-electric drone 

Indian Army has inducted loitering munitions, kamikaze and surveillance drones for over Rs 5,000 crore post Operation Sindoor from various domestic firms.

A year-end Mea Culpa in National Interest—The Army-Islam combo doesn’t kill democracy

Many of you might think I got something so wrong in National Interest pieces written this year. I might disagree! But some deserve a Mea Culpa. I’d deal with the most recent this week.