Sarvam Goes Open; New AI Deals
India’s AI landscape hit something of an inflection point this weekend. From Sarvam AI open sourcing its foundational model to strategic M&A and big-ticket funding, the ecosystem is shifting rapidly from “experimentation” to investing in new models and potentially unlocking enterprise adoption.
The Sovereign AI Foundation: Firstly, Sarvam AI cofounder Pratyush Kumar announced the open-sourcing of Sarvam 30B and 105B, two reasoning models built from scratch in India.
Developed under the IndiaAI Mission using a ₹98.68 Cr subsidy for Nvidia H100 GPUs, both models leverage the Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture and are optimised for 10 Indian languages. By releasing the weights publicly, Sarvam is fulfilling the sovereign AI dream — providing a homegrown, public alternative to Western models that allows local developers to build without the prohibitive costs of training from scratch.
Nitro Makes Agentic AI Play: On the application front, enterprise tech startup Nitro Commerce acquired Gurugram-based Zodiac Labs AI. This move integrates Agentic AI into the quick commerce sector (Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart).
Unlike traditional analytics, Zodiac’s model actively nudges marketers and reallocates ad spends in real-time. This acquisition signals a broader trend: brands are no longer satisfied with static dashboards; they want autonomous agents that can manage SKUs and purchase orders across fragmented retail channels.
Nurix AI Gets Prosus Backing: Rounding out the weekend’s news, Prosus joined the cap table of Mukesh Bansal-led Nurix AI. Nurix focuses on creating custom AI agents for enterprise workflows, bridging the gap between foundational LLMs and specific corporate needs.
Together with Sarvam’s release, these developments highlight a maturing market: while Sarvam provides the “reasoning brain,” players like Nitro and Nurix are building the “agentic limbs” that will power India’s digital economy.
Read more about the Nurix deal as reported exclusively by Inc42
From The Editor’s Desk
Meesho Gets A ₹1,500 Cr Tax Notice
- The ecommerce major has received a tax demand notice totalling ₹1,499.74 Cr from the Income Tax department for AY24. The department will now examine the company’s accounts to check the truthfulness of its income, deductions, and exemptions.
- Meanwhile, Meesho said it does not agree with the observations made in the order and will take appropriate steps to protect its interests.
- This is not the first time that the ecommerce platform has received such a demand. It is also challenging an income tax demand notice of ₹572.1 Cr (pertaining to AY23) before the Karnataka High Court.
A Week Of Bloodbath On D-Street
- Shares of new-age tech companies remained under selling pressure last week as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East continued to take a toll on the broader Indian equities markets.
- Of the 54 new-age tech companies under Inc42’s coverage, only 11 startup stocks ended last week in the black, gaining in a range of 0.06% to nearly 17%. Shares of the remaining 43 new-age tech companies fell in a range of 0.09% to over 13%.
- Amid the persistent bearish momentum, new-age tech stocks bled $7 Bn in cumulative market capitalisation to finally end the week at $120.3 Mn.
Flipkart’s Restructuring
- Ahead of initiating the IPO process, ecommerce major Flipkart has handed out the pink slip to about 400-500 employees following its annual performance review process. As per a report by ET, this represents about 3-4% of the company’s total workforce.
- Flipkart confirmed the development to Inc42. While the company refrained from giving out the exact number of employees laid off post the annual review, it said that the move was a part of the regular review cycle.
- The company has initiated preliminary discussions with investment bankers like Goldman Sachs, Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley, among others, to assess the feasibility of the public offering by early 2027
Weekly Funding Numbers Tank
- Indian startups managed to cumulatively raise a mere $97.6 Mn last week, down 56% from $219.8 Mn bagged in the preceding week. This amount was raised across 11 deals, a third of the deals reported in the last week of February.
- Ecommerce topped the funding charts, raising $39.5 Mn across four deals last week. Meanwhile, seed funding declined to $5.9 Mn from $32.5 Mn in the preceding week.
- Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) and Bessemer Venture Partners emerged as the most active investors and participated in some of the biggest rounds last week.
NxtGen’s Sovereign AI Play
- After long stints at Microsoft and Reliance, Rajgopal AS walked away from boardroom success to build something on his own. He founded NxtGen Cloud Technologies in 2013, a data centre company that quickly pivoted to a full stack, sovereign AI platform.
- NxtGen has built an internal AI team that runs across three layers – GPU‑agnostic infrastructure, open-source model frameworks, and an app layer – to compete with global hyperscalers.
- NxtGen is using growing demand for AI compute to push India-first use cases for legal and travel companies. With plans to scale to 12,000 GPUs and a 100 MW data centre, Rajgopal is betting that long-term value will sit with those who own the full stack.
New Interim CEO At Fino
- A week after its MD & CEO Rishi Gupta was arrested, the payments bank has appointed CFO Ketan Merchant as its new interim chief executive. Fino’s head of finance, investor relations and analytics Anup Aggarwal will step up to fill in the CFO role.
- The company’s board has constituted a panel to oversee operations, while a special consultant has also been appointed to review the payments bank’s GST compliances.
- This follows Hyderabad DGGI arresting Gupta on charges of GST evasion to the tune of ₹840 Cr. The case allegedly stems from a syndicate helmed by Gupta, who was involved in routing funds linked to illegal online gaming platforms via shell entities.
Inc42 Markets
Inc42 Startup Spotlight
Can Ecohomely Bring Home Services To India’s Hinterlands?
India’s non-metro cities still lack reliable home services. While big platforms like Urban Company have barely penetrated these regions, the dominant informal service providers are plagued with shoddy work and verification gaps breed scams. Ecohomely is trying to fix this problem with its zero-commission model.
Vocal For Local: Founded 2025, Ecohomely targets emerging urban hubs ignored by national players. It operates a marketplace that matches users with nearby service providers via ratings, reviews and instant booking. The platform spans 25 categories, including electrical, plumbing, carpentry, drivers and repairs.
Zero-Commission Approach: Unlike commission-heavy aggregators, Ecohomely charges professionals nothing. It rather facilitates direct pricing negotiation and payments between customers and workers. This keeps costs low for users, while maximising earnings for service providers in these price-sensitive markets.
A Growing Network: The company claims to have so far onboarded over 1,000 professionals after background checks, skill tests and credential verification to build trust. The bootstrapped startup is also banking on its digital visibility and steady leads to retain and rope in local service providers.
As it looks to expand beyond Vizag, can Ecohomely’s zero-commission model conquer India’s non-metro services market?
Infographic Of The Day
The Indian startup ecosystem is witnessing the rise of venture studios, where investment firms actively build, incubate, and scale startups from scratch. Here is a look at homegrown venture studios and startups they’ve helped create…
The post Sovereign AI Gains Steam, Meesho Gets Tax Notice & More appeared first on Inc42 Media.
https://ift.tt/LeDEbdA
0 Comments