Startup News

64-year-old retired entrepreneur Otis D'Souza has joined Mumbai-based startup Hobby Tribe as an unpaid intern. Founded by 26-year-old Joshua Salins, the company gives D'Souza an opportunity to mentor young employees, share business advice and make coffee for the team. After selling his firm in 2015, he said he missed interacting with people and sought a new purpose.

Utopia Labs Head of Brand Iain Jo shared a video showing the personal flying vehicle developed by the startup hovering in a closed room like a "real spaceship". The vehicle was seen flying like a plane without wings, as its electric fans blow high-speed air over a curved body for Coandă lift. The vehicle runs on just three batteries.

US-based Shinkei, backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, has gone viral after people began calling it the "most absurd AI startup ever". Shinkei's AI robot Poseidon identifies the type of fish and stabs it in the brain to make it taste better and have a 3x longer shelf life. The stabbing stops stress hormones from affecting the fish's flavour and texture.

Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock shared a video showing dozens of AI-powered robots moving slowly across the AI startup's campus. Adcock titled the video "F.03 humanoid robots", as an X user said the robots are giving off a 'Walking Dead' vibe, referring to the horror series 'The Walking Dead'. Other users said the robots walked like ex-US President Joe Biden.

Anthropic’s AI models are improving nearly twice as fast as before as AI plays a growing role in developing more powerful successors, a study by AI safety nonprofit METR found. However, the 11-week assessment, conducted between August and October, said AI remains incapable of making highly significant, fully autonomous contributions to the most important stages of model training today.

Anthropic struck a $3.2-billion (₹32,000 crore) deal to buy power generators from US-based OnePWR Solutions, FT reported. This is the single-largest purchase of power-generation equipment by an AI startup. OnePWR had ordered Caterpillar generators two years ago but needed financing to complete the transaction, which Anthropic will now provide to, in return, procure the generators at lower prices.

Discovered Materials, an AI startup founded by IIT Madras alumni, has announced a $1 million (over ₹9 crore) prize challenge to solve five longstanding problems in materials science. These include developing a theory to explain cuprate superconductivity and predicting electrical properties of semiconductor interfaces. The firm uses AI models to discover new materials for building advanced chips.

Deepinder Goyal has clarified that Temple, a wearable device launched by his startup, is primarily designed for the global market and is not aimed at Indian consumers. "Please check pricing. We don't expect any more than 1% of Temples being sold in India," Goyal said. His remarks came amid criticism from Indian doctors over the device's accuracy, safety and uses.

Anthropic has unveiled Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Mythos 5.2, updated versions of its most powerful AI models. During prerelease testing, the models designed three working electronic devices, solved two open problems in the physics of black holes and formalised a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in 30 hours, Anthropic said. The release comes ahead of the company's planned IPO.

Bengaluru-based AI startup Sarvam has appointed former MD of Google Cloud India Sashikumar Sreedharan as its President and Chief Business Officer. Sreedharan will join Sarvam's board of directors as well and oversee key functions like marketing, finance, forward-deployed engineering, and commercial operations. Sreedharan also headed Microsoft India's enterprise business as MD for over five years.

Anthropic briefly sent banks and then retracted details of its proposed IPO, including plans to raise nearly $70 billion, Reuters reported. A copy of a filing showed the AI startup planned to sell around 867 million shares at $70-80 apiece. However, it later emailed recipients saying the pricing details were inaccurate and that it would update the filing later.

US-based SplashBI inaugurated its Global Capability Centre at VSD Tech Park in Hyderabad's Financial District, announcing over $100 million investment over 5–7 years. The 20,000 sq ft facility seats 275 professionals and includes a $4 million AI data centre. It will focus on platform engineering, AI, data science and global customer delivery.

Australian quantum startup Diraq has deployed an eight-qubit quantum computer at a Sydney data center — the world's first commercial field test of such technology. The system aims to reduce energy consumption in AI-driven data centers. Founder Andrew Dzurak says quantum computing could ease electrical grid strain within five years. Diraq plans to scale to 150,000 qubits by 2029.

Sarvam AI has appointed Sashikumar Sreedharan, former Managing Director of Google Cloud India, as its President and Chief Business Officer. He will also join Sarvam's board. Sreedharan brings 30+ years of tech experience, including 5+ years at Microsoft India, and will lead enterprise, government, marketing, finance, and commercial operations.

Anthropic has signed a $3.4 billion deal with San Antonio-based OnePWR Solutions for 1.7 gigawatts of gas-fired generators to power its data centres — the largest single power equipment purchase by an AI company. Finalized in late September, the deal supports Anthropic's Claude AI models as it prepares for its IPO and plans $500 billion in infrastructure investment over a decade.

Claude maker Anthropic has set a price range of $70-78/share for what could be one of the world's largest IPOs, which it may launch as soon as next week. Anthropic is targeting a fully diluted valuation of up to $1.4 trillion and a fundraising haul of as much as $64.4 billion. The startup has also launched its IPO roadshow.

Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao holds a stake worth about $703 million (around ₹6,500 crore) in the company, according to Moneycontrol's calculations based on its IPO filing. Rao joined the AI startup over two years ago. Anthropic is reportedly seeking to raise around $90 billion at a $1.4-trillion valuation through an IPO expected to launch next week.

Claude-maker Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei predicted that cancer, Alzheimer's, heart and mental illnesses will be "relics of the past" in under 10 years. "I think if we do this right, we can create an age of miracles where humanity can solve problems that have eluded us for millennia," he said. Society will trust company that gets this right, he added.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov reacted to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's affair with alleged Chinese spy and joked, "Unfair that CEOs who aren’t into Asian girls get fewer dating options from spy agencies." "Where are the French/Russian/Iranian honeypots?...Not one spy girl sent my way," he added. "France is excused — their decision-makers aren’t into girls. Everyone else: try harder!" he said.

Unacademy Co-founder Gaurav Munjal has stepped down as CEO to become Executive Chairman, with Chief Business Officer Akhilendra Kumar taking over as CEO. The leadership change comes just over two months after Ronnie Screwvala-led upGrad acquired the edtech firm for slightly over $200 million. Kumar's appointment is an internal promotion, having risen through leadership roles between 2022 and 2025.