Sarvam’s Big Showcase, MagicBricks CEO Quits & More

Indian LLMs Steal The Show

It was an action-packed third day at the India AI Impact Summit. As usual, big tech giants dominated the chatter with their big-ticket investment commitments and partnership proclamations. But it was the homegrown startups that quietly stole the spotlight by launching cutting-edge AI products. 

Here’s a look at key announcements from Day 3: 

• Sarvam AI launched two indigenous large language models – Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B
• BharatGPT creator CoRover launched an offline AI device, called BharatGPT DeskAI Appliance, powered by NVIDIA
• Google DeepMind announced a partnership with government bodies to facilitate the adoption of frontier AI models
• NPCI and NVIDIA will collaborate to scale and advance sovereign AI capabilities for the digital payments ecosystem

Sarvam’s Showcase: The AI startup dominated day three by unveiling its two LLM contenders. Trained from scratch in India and supporting 22 Indian languages, 30B is a lighter version using minimum tokens for lower latency and higher efficiency. Meanwhile, the 105B model has a context length of 1.28 Lakh tokens for a more complex reasoning ability. 

Beyond the LLMs, Sarvam also launched Pravah – a token factory that will manufacture tokens for industrial use. 

GPU Scale-Up: To house India’s AI intelligence, L&T announced a partnership with NVIDIA to build a sovereign, gigawatt-scale AI data centre to support large-scale AI workloads across sectors. The chipmaker also tied up with Yotta Data Services to deliver advanced AI factories for developing LLMs. 

Qualcomm’s India AI Bet: Another major takeaway from the event was the computing giant committing $150 Mn worth of investments in Indian AI and technology startups, especially those operating in areas of Edge computing and wireless telecom. Under this, Qualcomm infused the first tranche of investment worth $3.8 Mn in ToneTag, a startup building audio-led payment systems. 

With much more lined up today, here is how SarvamAI whipped up a storm on the third day of the summit…

From The Editor’s Desk

ED Clampdown On WinZO Continues

• The Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached ₹505 Cr held by the gaming giant in overseas accounts, which were controlled through two shell entities in the US and Singapore. 
• This latest clampdown comes three months after ED raided the offices and residential premises linked to WinZO and its cofounders over allegations of money laundering. With this, the agency has frozen assets to the tune of ₹1,194 Cr linked to the company. 
• As per ED, the erstwhile gaming giant engaged in systematic manipulation by pitting users against bots. Besides, multiple FIRs have been filed against WinZO over allegations of cheating, KYC misuse and wrongful account blocking.

MagicBricks CEO Quits 

• After a 15-year stint, Sudhir Pai has stepped down as the chief executive of the Times Internet-owned proptech venture. 
• In an internal email, Pai told employees that the “frenetic” pace of running the company left him little time to think for himself, adding that he now wants to reflect on what to commit to for the next 10 to 15 years.
• Founded in 2006, Magicbricks has lately been moving away from a pureplay property listings marketplace to a more full-stack proptech platform, which supports discovery, sales enablement and broker productivity with software-led experiences.

Statiq Nets $18 Mn

• The EV charging startup has raised ₹163.2 Cr in a mix of equity and debt from Tenacity Ventures, Y Combinator, and others to scale its presence in non-metro cities, roll out DC fast chargers on key highways and invest in hardware lifecycle management.
• Founded in 2020, Statiq offers end-to-end EV charging solutions. It manufactures EV chargers, runs a consumer app for discovery and booking, and manages infrastructure for commercial and residential partners.
• Statiq’s funding round lands at a time when EV registrations continue to rise, but charging infrastructure remains patchy. This has made infrastructure the most investible part of the EV value chain compared to the more cyclical vehicle segment.

HOCCO’s ₹1K Cr Revenue Gameplan

• After selling Havmor Ice Cream to Lotte in 2017 amid demonetisation, Ankit Chona chose to take a second plunge and launched HOCCO Ice Creams in October 2023. 
• The D2C brand has since ramped manufacturing capacity from 10K litres a day at the time of the launch to 2.5 Lakh litres currently. On the back of its growing portfolio and footprint, the company aims to close FY26 with ₹500 Cr in top line.
• HOCCO’s revenue engine is anchored in general trade (70% of total sales), supported by quick commerce (15%) and B2B sales. Going forward, the company plans to continue its focus on scaling operations, while balancing financial discipline. 

Reprieve For Bhavish Aggarwal

• Ola Electric has said that the arrest warrant issued against its founder and chairman, Bhavish Aggarwal, has been stayed by the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court. 
• As per the company, the HC observed that “the Commission exceeded its jurisdiction under the Consumer Protection Act in issuing the warrant”.
• This warrant came after Aggarwal failed to show up for a scheduled hearing before a Goa consumer disputes redressal commission earlier this month. The case pertained to an escooter that went missing at the company’s service centre. 

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

Smylo’s Quest To Feed India’s 4 Mn Pet Cats

Most Indian pets still eat home-cooked food. While packaged pet food is gaining traction, there are not too many options for cat parents, leaving them saddled with pricey imported brands, vague labels, and products poorly adapted to Indian needs. Smylo was founded to change this.

Smylo’s Pet Mission: Founded in 2020, the D2C brand is building a homegrown, science-led food brand for cats. Built on three pillars (natural food, high-protein recipes and human-grade ingredients), Smylo claims that its wet food, dry food and broth ranges are all meat-first and preservative-free. The startup’s products use tocopherols (Vitamin E) and retort packaging to extend shelf life, rather than artificial additives.

Craving A Niche: Smylo claims to be clocking monthly sales in the range of ₹50 Lakh to ₹55 Lakh, with 80% coming from its website and online marketplaces. Maharashtra and Karnataka drive the bulk of revenue, while the recent Shark Tank India debut further accelerated consumer reach.

Future Roadmap: Smylo plans to solidify its dominance in cat food and care before venturing into other pet categories. It’s also expanding warehouses across key metros for faster deliveries, refining recipes via R&D, and scaling quick commerce presence. 

So, can Smylo turn a niche cat-food bet into India’s go-to brand for feline health?

Infographic Of The Day

Day 1 & 2 of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 showed one thing clearly: India isn’t just talking AI policy, it’s building the full stack.

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