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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei lauds surging AI momentum in India
As Anthropic opened its India office, Co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei highlighted the company’s surging business momentum in the country and the rapid uptake of its agentic coding tool across the developer ecosystem.
Speaking at Anthropic’s Builder Summit at Bengaluru, Amodei noted that the AI firm’s revenue run-rate within India has doubled over the last four months. Claude Code, Anthropic’s agentic coding tool for developers, may have grown even faster, he added. Read more here
AI fears may be overstated, says Naukri’s Sanjeev Bhikchandani
Addressing a gathering of industry leaders and policymakers at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Founder of Naukri.com, said technological disruptions typically boost productivity rather than destroy employment.
Bhikchandani, who has spent over three decades building Info Edge India and its Naukri.com platform, told industry leaders and policymakers at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi that past waves of technological change have generally increased productivity rather than eliminating jobs.
“So, first of all, I’ll say one thing, don’t panic,” Bhikchandani said. “Okay, I don’t know what the answer is, but we’ll figure it out. Second, you know, the truth is, I don’t know what’s going to happen, and nobody knows, right? But the environment is chaotic, it’s dynamic, it’s moving fast, and we got to go with the flow,” he said.
Funding News
Exponent Energy launches EV financing arm Exponent One; new entity raises $2M from AdvantEdge Founders
Bengaluru-based EV energy startup Exponent Energy has launched Exponent One, a fintech and asset management platform focused on financing commercial electric vehicles, as it looks to remove one of the biggest bottlenecks slowing EV adoption.
The new entity has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding from mobility-focused venture capital firm AdvantEdge Founders.
Exponent One will be led by Sandeep Divakaran, a financing and mobility veteran who has held CXO roles at Ola and evfin by Greaves. Exponent Energy will hold a majority stake in Exponent One, which will operate as its subsidiary, with Divakaran joining as the co-founder and CEO. Read more here
HomeRun raises Rs 60 Cr in Series A funding led by Sorin Investments
HomeRun, a Bengaluru-based quick commerce platform for construction and home-improvement materials, has raised Rs 60 crore Series A funding led by Sorin Investments.
The round also saw participation from Titan Capital Winners Fund, Sparrow Capital, Consumer Collective by Atrium and Helios Holdings. Sorin Investments invested Rs 40 crore in the round. Read more here
Artociti Raises Rs 1 Cr on Shark Tank India
Artociti, a mass-premium luxury 3D wall art and manufacturing brand, has raised Rs 1 crore for a 7.5% equity stake at a valuation of Rs 13.33 crore on Shark Tank India. The funding comes from Namita Thapar, Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, and Vineeta Singh, Co-founder and CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics. This marks the company’s first institutional investment.
The funds will be utilised to build a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Bokaro, Jharkhand, to increase production capacity and ensure stricter quality control and quicker deliveries. The move supports Artociti’s experience-based retail format, which is currently led by its 3,000 sq. ft. Artociti Experience Centre in Kirti Nagar, Delhi.
The company plans to open new centres in Pune, Bengaluru, and Chennai, while also exploring international export opportunities in the medium term.
Other News
Pixxel and Exotrail partner to power next-generation Earth observation satellites
Pixxel, a planetary intelligence company that builds and operates some of the world’s most advanced imaging satellites, today announced a partnership with Exotrail, a France-based electric propulsion provider, to equip its space infrastructure with Exotrail’s top-tier spaceware propulsion systems.
This announcement was made on the occasion of French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurating the India-France innovation year, highlighting growing technological collaboration between the two nations.
Under this agreement, Pixxel will integrate Exotrail’s spaceware electric propulsion systems across its upcoming satellite deployments, with deliveries extending through 2027. The systems will support Pixxel’s expanding Earth Observation constellation and broader space infrastructure roadmap.
Pocket FM’s creator economy reaches Rs 300 Cr, targets 3X growth to Rs 1,000 Cr in 2026
Pocket FM’s creator economy has crossed Rs 300 crore and is on track for 3X growth, targeting Rs 1,000 crore in 2026. The platform currently has over 300,000 creators publishing using AI tools and aims to scale this to 1 million creators by 2026.
In 2025, the top 10% of monetised creators collectively earned Rs 50 crore, while the top 1% each earned over Rs 50 lakh annually. The company also plans to adapt 50 creator-led Indian IPs for audiences in the US and Europe.
AWS partners with Yotta to install outposts in NIC data centres
Amazon Web Services India will work with Yotta Data Services to deploy a hybrid cloud infrastructure for the National Informatics Centre as the government seeks to modernise digital services while maintaining data residency requirements.
AWS said it will deploy AWS Outposts within NIC data centres, allowing government departments to run sensitive workloads on-premise while accessing AWS cloud services and generative artificial intelligence capabilities.
The collaboration is aimed at enabling government departments to use advanced cloud infrastructure while ensuring that sensitive data remains within India’s trusted infrastructure ecosystem.
IIT Madras introduces ‘ThinnAI’ road-safety AI trainer at India AI Impact Summit 2026
Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ (IIT Madras) Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS) introduces ‘ThinnAI’, a personalised Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled trainer designed to enhance driver readiness and strengthen road safety in India.
The platform was introduced on Monday (16th Feb 2026) at the AI for Road Safety session in the India AI Impact Summit 2026 being held in Delhi.
ThinnAI seeks to improve pre-licensing education by assessing aspiring drivers’ knowledge of traffic signs, road rules, motor vehicles, cognitive abilities and physical readiness through multi-level, video game-like tests with zero human intervention. The platform is designed to prepare first-time drivers even before they obtain their Learner’s License.
Eros Innovation introduces AI creator app at India AI Impact Summit
At the India AI Impact Summit, Eros Innovation announced the launch of Eros Universe, an AI-powered creator economy app built on what it calls Large Cultural Models (LCMs), marking what the company describes as the first institutional deployment of culturally trained AI infrastructure originating from India.
Developed by ErosGenAI, the company’s artificial intelligence division, the Large Cultural Model framework is designed to move beyond general-purpose Large Language Models by embedding cultural context, narrative structure, emotional nuance and regional storytelling grammar into AI systems.
The models have been trained on over 1.5 trillion rights-cleared, culturally curated tokens drawn from five decades of licensed cinematic and musical assets.
The company also announced a $5 million (over Rs 42 crore) Global Creator Acceleration Programme to support AI-native films, series and music projects within the ecosystem.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan
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