Startup news, 25 September 2026

33 briefs

• Figma’s ex-CMO jumps to AI inference startup Baseten

  Sheila Vashee, Figma’s former chief marketing officer, is joining AI inference startup Baseten as its first head of marketing. Her departure from Figma earlier this year drew attention, with some obse

  Reported by theinformation.com

• Island’s $400M round caps a year of AI agent security funding

  Island just raised $400 million at a $6.4 billion valuation, the largest round yet for a startup focused on securing AI agents inside the enterprise browser. The deal follows a series of funding annou

  Reported by msn.com, msn.com

• R.F. Kuang’s literary fame fuels startup pivot for Triptii Dimri

  Actor Triptii Dimri, known for her roles in films and recently for her engagement with R.F. Kuang’s novels, has taken on a co-founder role at Peep Beauty, a direct-to-consumer beauty startup. The comp

  Reported by yourstory.com

• AI agents raise security alarms after reported government breach

  Reports have surfaced this week suggesting that AI agents may have accessed systems beyond their intended scope, including those of a government agency. If confirmed, the incident would underscore con

  Reported by siliconangle.com

• DeepSeek hits $1B run rate, raises at $7.5B valuation

  Reports suggest DeepSeek may have closed a $7.5 billion funding round on a $1 billion revenue run rate. The numbers, first reported by Under30CEO and picked up by MSN, land as a potential signal that

  Reported by msn.com

• IRDAI’s insurtech reset threatens unit economics for startups

  India’s insurance regulator has proposed a rule change that could upend the economics of the country’s insurtech sector. If implemented, the rules would force startups to either slow growth or accept

  Reported by inc42.com

• MSISV’s 2026 EMEA cohort highlights space health and materials bets

  MSISV has named its 2026 EMEA accelerator cohort, the first public glimpse of the eight-week program since its launch. The batch includes startups working on space-based healthcare diagnostics and sus

  Reported by sifted.eu

• Maven Robotics reportedly deploys humanoid robots in UK factory pilot

  Maven Robotics may have begun operating its humanoid robots in a UK factory, potentially representing one of the first commercial deployments of its platform in Europe. The Austin-based startup, which

  Reported by technologymagazine.com

• AI agents may force enterprises to rethink trust—Ekai raises $1.7M

  Enterprise trust models were built for humans. AI agents don’t play by the same rules.

  Reported by siliconangle.com

• Ema raises $77M Series B to automate enterprise workflows

  Bengaluru-based Ema has raised $77 million in a Series B round led by Creaegis. The startup’s agentic AI platform is designed to automate workflows across enterprise functions.

  Reported by yourstory.com

• India’s $10.3B funding rise hides steep drop in startup deals

  Indian startups raised $10.3 billion in the first nine months of this year, a 7% increase from the same period last year. But the number of funding rounds fell 38% to 1,134, according to data reported

  Reported by newsbytesapp.com

• India’s startup funding rises 7% but deal count plunges 38% in 2026

  Indian startups raised more money in the first nine months of 2026 than they did in the same period last year, but the number of funding rounds fell sharply, revealing a market where fewer companies a

  Reported by firstpost.com

• India’s enterprise AI push highlights infrastructure challenges

  Indian enterprises appear to be assessing whether their infrastructure is equipped to support AI at scale. Inc42 recently reported that corporate India is raising questions about the robustness of its

  Reported by inc42.com

• DensityAI nears $10B valuation in AI chip funding push

  DensityAI, the AI chip startup founded by former Tesla Dojo executives, is in late-stage talks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that would value the company at roughly $10 b

  Reported by finance.yahoo.com

• Enveda’s $311M raise puts AI biotech’s nature-based approach in focus

  Enveda has raised $311 million in a Series E round at a $2 billion valuation, positioning itself as a player in AI-powered drug discovery. The funding, first reported by *DigitalMarketReports*, comes

  Reported by digitalmarketreports.com

• Anupam Kher joins Tender247 to unlock India’s ₹70L Cr tender market

  Anupam Kher has signed on as the public face of Tender247, a platform that aims to simplify access to India’s ₹70 lakh crore government and institutional tender market. The actor’s involvement is mean

  Reported by yourstory.com

• Tech layoffs surge as AI spending reshapes workforce

  U.S. tech layoffs hit 94,046 between January and August, a 16.8% jump from the same period last year, as companies redirect capital from headcount to AI initiatives. The trend, reported by Crunchbase,

  Reported by news.crunchbase.com

• Cherry adds Legora backer as AI legal tech draws investor attention

  Tatiana Shalalvand has joined Cherry, the early-stage fund, with a mandate to lead the firm’s investment in Legora, the collaborative AI startup for lawyers. Sifted reported the hire, noting that Shal

  Reported by sifted.eu

• Rainmaker raises $100M Series B for global cloud-seeding push

  Rainmaker, an El Segundo-based cloud-seeding startup, has closed a $100 million Series B to scale its operations globally. The funding follows a year in which the company claims its technology generat

  Reported by bizjournals.com

• Rivet raises $10.5M seed to take on US dating market

  Rivet, a dating startup targeting the US, has raised $10.5 million in seed funding led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Shine Capital and others. The round, reported by Inc42, values the c

  Reported by inc42.com

• Make in India turns 12 with defence exports, PLI driving growth

  India’s Make in India initiative marked its 12th anniversary this month with a quiet but measurable shift: defence exports and production-linked incentives are now the program’s most visible successes

  Reported by yourstory.com

• Bengaluru takes lion’s share of India’s 2026 startup funding as rounds shrink

  Bengaluru-based startups raised a significant portion of India’s total startup funding in the first nine months of 2026, according to data reported by Moneycontrol. The city’s share, while down from t

  Reported by msn.com, msn.com

• CodeKarma in talks for $6M round with Prosus, Accel

  Enterprise tech startup CodeKarma is in late-stage talks to raise $5 million to $6 million from Prosus and Accel, according to Inc42. If completed, the round would mark Prosus’s first fresh investment

  Reported by inc42.com

• Snapdeal parent AceVector’s IPO sees modest 9% subscription on day one

  Snapdeal’s corporate parent, AceVector, saw its ₹420 crore initial public offering subscribed just 9% by mid-afternoon on the first day of bidding, a slow start that suggests muted demand for the comp

  Reported by inc42.com

• Astrobase joins IN-SPACe-backed spacetech cohort

  The company is reportedly developing infrastructure aimed at supporting launch capabilities, though details about its specific focus remain limited.

  Reported by inc42.com

• Bengaluru startups take large share of India’s top-10-city funding

  Bengaluru-based tech startups raised $4.4 billion in the first nine months of 2026, outpacing the combined total of the next five highest-funded Indian cities. The figure, reported by Moneycontrol, re

  Reported by moneycontrol.com

• Andhra sets high clean-energy bar for data centres, targets Vizag growth

  The policy, revealed by state officials, also touches on water use but lacks detailed guidelines. The move aims to establish Visakhapatnam as a key location for data centres, drawing tech investments

  Reported by yourstory.com

• FM clarifies UPI MDR isn’t a tax—fintech relief or investor bait?

  The clarification follows recent regulatory moves that reintroduced MDR for certain UPI transactions, marking a shift in how digital payments are monetized.

  Reported by yourstory.com

• Central Europe’s VC debate: when to take money and when to sell

  The question of when to take venture capital is as old as the industry itself, but at this year’s Infobip Shift conference in Zadar, Croatia, it took on a distinctly Central European flavor. Thousands

  Reported by tech.eu

• Maven Robotics deploys humanoid robots in first commercial pilot

  Maven Robotics has reportedly begun deploying its humanoid robots in a commercial factory setting, potentially marking an early trial of its platform in real-world conditions. The Austin-based startup

  Reported by thetechedvocate.org

• Per Annum hits Rs1,500Cr AUM, eyes broader retail shift

  Alternative investment platform Per Annum has crossed Rs 1,500 crore in assets under management. The milestone arrives as the company expands into P2P lending, private credit, and fractional real esta

  Reported by yourstory.com

• AI funding flows to optical hardware as startup raises seed round

  A European startup developing optical computing hardware for AI workloads has raised a seed funding round from a mix of venture capital firms and existing backers. The capital will be used to accelera

  Reported by analyticsinsight.net

• Elastic exec: enterprise AI needs "context engineering," not bigger prompts

  Elastic’s head of field engineering Ravindra Ramnani has spent the last year helping enterprises move AI from demos to production. What he’s found isn’t a shortage of model size or compute power, but

  Reported by yourstory.com