Hala Mobility’s FY26 Revenue Jumps 4.4X To ₹97 Cr, Posts ₹3.6 Cr Profit

Source: inc42

Hala Mobility’s FY26 Revenue Jumps 4.4X To ₹97 Cr, Posts ₹3.6 Cr Profit

Business

Electric mobility startup Hala Mobility saw its FY26 operating revenue jump 4.4X to ₹97 Cr, with profit after tax increasing ninefold to ₹3.6 Cr. The company expanded its fleet to 17,000 vehicles across nine cities, serving partners like Zomato and Amazon. Targeting ₹250-260 Cr in revenue and 32,000 vehicles for FY27, Hala is now seeking ₹135 Cr in Series A funding to further scale its operations.

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Meta agrees to sweeping changes to restrict kids’ access to its apps as part of settlement with states

Startups

Meta has agreed to an $18 billion settlement with 29 U.S. states to enhance children's safety on Instagram and Facebook. New protections for users under 18 include a cumulative two-hour daily time limit, a midnight-to-6 a.m. "Night Mode" block, and muted school-hour notifications. Meta is also introducing non-algorithmic feeds and hidden like counts, while urging TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar industry-wide standards for teen protection.

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What’s driving Sweden’s startup boom, from Lovable to Legora

Startups

"Stockholm-based startup Lovable recently raised $400 million, reaching a $13.3 billion valuation. Other Nordic firms like Legora and Neko Health are also seeing significant growth. In a recent TechCrunch Equity podcast episode, Cherry Ventures partner Sophia Bendz discusses the factors fueling this regional surge, highlighting the influence of Sweden's social safety net and an influx of U.S. capital on the thriving Nordic startup ecosystem.".

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Radar makes podcasts searchable — and usable by AI agents

Startups

Particle, an AI startup founded by former Twitter engineers, has launched Radar, a podcast search engine and API. Radar transcribes over 130,000 podcasts, enabling AI agents and users to discover key quotes and track specific entities. The tool attracts high-volume customers like hedge funds and AI search platforms. By indexing audio intelligence, Particle aims to fill a gap in text-focused web crawling, with plans to expand into YouTube.

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Ribbit Capital Sells Groww Shares Worth ₹2,217 Cr

Business

Groww’s early backer Ribbit Capital has offloaded a cumulative 11.31 Cr shares via two bulk deals today, as per NSE.

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Ex-Meta scientists want to bring visual AI to the factory floor

Startups

Perceptron, a startup founded by former Meta researchers, has launched Isaac 0.5, an open-weight vision model designed for industrial automation. The software enables robots to perceive, reason, and act flexibly in complex environments like warehouses. Trained on petabyte-scale video datasets, the general-purpose model aims to replace narrow, task-specific AI. The company recently raised $21 million to expand its technology across manufacturing, logistics, and security sectors.

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Ring introduces a new encryption standard, makes it the default for cloud features

Startups

"Amazon’s Ring is introducing a new default encryption standard called TAKE (Throw Away the Key Encryption) starting in September. This system uses rotating keys to enable cloud-based features like Smart Alerts while protecting privacy by deleting keys within 24 hours. Based on Messaging Layer Security, TAKE offers a balance between functionality and security, though users may still opt for end-to-end encryption amid ongoing privacy concerns and lawsuits.".

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Bill Gates wants to see a robot tax and ‘Human Reserved’ jobs to mitigate harms from AI

Startups

Bill Gates recently shared his views on AI's social impacts, emphasizing the need for responsible development. While optimistic about healthcare and science, he expressed concern over labor displacement. Gates proposed a "robot tax" to fund worker retraining and the creation of "Human Reserved" roles to protect specific jobs for ethical or economic reasons. These measures aim to slow automation and preserve human-centric services despite potential profit losses.

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CISA confirms hackers targeted over 100 US water systems during July

Startups

CISA reports cyberattacks targeting over 100 internet-exposed systems within the U.S. water and wastewater sector, specifically focusing on programmable logic controllers. While water supplies remain largely unaffected, the intrusions caused disruptions and potentially unsafe conditions by disabling alarms. U.S. intelligence suspects Iran is behind these opportunistic attacks, highlighting broader vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure amid ongoing threats from other nations like China and Russia.

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Surprise: Z.ai is the AI lab behind the mysterious Ox Alpha model

Startups

Z.ai confirms it is behind Ox Alpha, the mysterious open AI model topping benchmarks and leaderboards, and its weights are set to be released soon.

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D2C Kitchenware Startup Curaa Raises ₹40 Cr To Expand Portfolio

Business

Bengaluru-based D2C kitchenware startup Curaa has raised ₹40 Cr ($4.2 Mn) in a Series A funding round led by 3one4 Capital. Founded by Neeraj Kumawat and Sanjyot Keer, the company plans to use the capital to expand its product portfolio, scale its supply chain, and grow its quick-commerce presence. Curaa has seen its monthly net revenue grow 25X since September 2024, targeting a market projected to exceed $5.5 billion by 2033. (74 words) -.

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Meta settles for $18 billion in lawsuit brought by 29 states over social media harms to children

Startups

"Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle lawsuits from 29 U.S. states regarding children's safety on Instagram and Facebook. The states alleged that Meta designed addictive platforms and illegally collected data from minors. While not admitting guilt, Meta is using the settlement to urge competitors like TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar teen protections and parental controls to establish a new industry standard.".

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Robot brain builders are pushing out of their GPT-2 era

Startups

Physical AI is attracting billions in investment, but companies like Unitree face valuation drops as robots struggle to perform value-creating work. The sector currently faces a critical shortage of high-quality training data, placing it in a "GPT-2 era." While autonomous vehicle firms leverage existing data infrastructure for humanoid development, developers remain divided between pursuing general-purpose models and focusing on specific, revenue-generating vertical applications.

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LEAD FY26’s Loss Dips 20% YoY To ₹34.5 Cr, Operating Revenue Up 10%

Business

Edtech unicorn LEAD narrowed its FY26 net loss by 20% to ₹34.5 crore, while operating revenue grew 10% to ₹386.7 crore. Driven by cost optimization and better school retention, EBITDA surged 7.5X to ₹30.2 crore. Revenue primarily came from books, teaching aids, and platform services. The company, serving 9,000 schools, is now investing in AI solutions and targets break-even or profitability in FY27.

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Bluesky now lets you upload 10-minute long videos

Startups

"Bluesky has increased its video upload limit to 10 minutes and raised the maximum file size to 300MB, while improving upload speeds. This update, which also benefits other AT Protocol apps, aims to compete with platforms like TikTok, Threads, and X. The move comes as Bluesky seeks to recover its active user base, which has declined by over 25% year-over-year according to data from Similarweb.".

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QueryStory wants you to believe what AI is telling you

Startups

Former Google engineer Shapor Naghibzadeh has launched QueryStory, an AI-driven data analysis platform for large enterprises. The startup, which raised $6 million in seed funding at a $60 million valuation, aims to provide transparent and verifiable narratives from complex proprietary databases. By automating data review and offering confidence indicators, QueryStory helps decision-makers obtain reliable insights without needing dedicated data science teams or expensive general-purpose AI agents.

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Arga is building a better way to train enterprise AI agents

Startups

Arga, a startup that raised $10 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst, is developing training environments for AI agents. By creating digital twins of enterprise software like Salesforce and Workday, Arga provides repeatable sandbox environments for reinforcement learning. This approach allows companies to test agents on complex, multi-system interactions, overcoming the limitations of traditional software environments and accelerating the deployment of effective agentic systems.

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India’s Spacetech Ecosystem Looks To Microgravity For Drug Discovery And Manufacturing

Business

Indian spacetech startups, including Serendipity and AnduraX, are leveraging microgravity for pharmaceutical manufacturing and drug discovery. By creating uniform protein crystals impossible to replicate on Earth, these firms aim to advance medicine and materials science. Supported by ISRO and private accelerators, India is entering a global market currently led by companies like Merck and Varda, transitioning from space experimentation toward a commercial in-orbit manufacturing economy.

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AI Agent Platform Runable Raises $21 Mn To Help Small Businesses Grow

Business

Runable, an AI agent platform for small businesses, has raised $21 million in a Series A round co-led by Susquehanna Venture Capital and Nexus Venture Partners. Founded by Umesh Kumar and Saksham Sarda, the startup aims to automate customer acquisition and marketing operations. Runable reportedly reached $2 million in ARR within three weeks of launch and currently serves 1.5 million users with a small team of 15.

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5 Books that reveal the forgotten women who changed history

Startups

Many women have significantly influenced history, science, and social norms, yet their achievements often remained unrecognized. Books like Hidden Figures, The Radium Girls, Code Girls, The Women of the Copper Country, and Pandora's Daughters highlight these forgotten figures. From NASA mathematicians and WWII codebreakers to labor activists and Victorian pioneers, these women challenged societal limitations, driving critical advancements and reforms that shaped the modern world.

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