Zepto discontinues Zepto Daily; AI voice agents for financial services

Day 3 of the AI summit was all about capital.

Big Tech took centre stage, with Microsoft unveiling its plans to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to help bring AI to countries across the Global South to close the gap with the more advanced Global North. 

Meanwhile, India’s AI ecosystem received a significant boost from Yotta Data Services’ plans to spend $2 billion on NVIDIA’s latest chips for an India-based AI computing hub. 

Qualcomm, too, was quick to jump into the fray with a commitment of an additional $150 million to an AI venture fund to support Indian tech startups.

According to NVIDIA’s Managing Director for South Asia, Vishal Dhupar, India’s vast base of developers, startups, and partners has helped it cement itself as “one of the most important hubs for AI innovation”.

To that end, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai met at the summit to discuss India’s AI push and the role Google could play in accelerating its ambitions.

India’s homegrown AI startups also made a splash, with Sarvam AI unveiling a new generation of large language models, in line with India’s insistence on reducing reliance on global AI services and building models tailored for local languages and use cases.

The company is also shifting focus to consumer use cases, with plans to deploy its models in Nokia feature phones, smart glasses, and even cars. 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Zepto discontinues Zepto Daily
• AI voice agents for financial services
• Inside Embarq’s women-only expeditions

Here’s your trivia for today: Which country was the first to host the Summer and Winter Games in the same year?

Quick Commerce

Zepto discontinues Zepto Daily

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Zepto has discontinued its loyalty and subscription programme, Zepto Daily, according to a person aware of the matter. The programme is no longer visible on the app, which has undergone a significant revamp in recent months.

“As part of this ongoing optimisation, we periodically review and refine our subscription and loyalty constructs based on user feedback, engagement patterns, and long-term value creation,” a company spokesperson said. 

All the details:

• Zepto Daily was sold for as little as Re 1 per month, offering benefits such as free deliveries beyond a certain cart value threshold. The programme was an evolution of Zepto Pass, the company’s earlier loyalty offering.
• Zepto Pass was initially priced at Rs 299 per month before being sharply reduced over time to as low as Rs 19 per month, reflecting the company’s efforts to drive adoption.
• In April 2024, CEO Aadit Palicha said the company had crossed 4 million Zepto Pass subscribers.

Funding Alert

Startup: Stable Money

Amount: $25M

Round: Pre-Series C

Startup: Vervesemi

Amount: $10M

Round: Series A

Startup: Truboard Partners

Amount: Rs 20 Cr

Round: Undisclosed

Startup

AI voice agents for financial services

What if voice agents engage in natural conversations for as long as 20 minutes, without customers realising they are speaking to AI? What if these AI bots go beyond automation to achieve business outcomes that top-performing human agents are capable of? 

This is what Bengaluru-based AI startup Arrowhead aims to achieve.

Human-like bots:

• Founded in 2022 by Devyani Gupta and Vengadanathan Srinivasan, the startup builds AI-powered voice agents designed specifically for the financial services sector—bots that can run long, natural conversations akin to what top-performing human callers are capable of. 
• Arrowhead’s voice agents have achieved up to 45–50% higher conversions than human teams in certain deployments, while sustaining conversations that can run for as long as 20 minutes—often without customers realising they are speaking to AI.
• It currently serves over 50 BFSIs across India and Southeast Asia, including Bank of Baroda Cards, Aditya Birla Capital, Paytm, Tata 1MG, upGrad, Kissht, Equentis, TurtleMint, InsuranceDekho, and Mudra Fincorp.

Inspiration

Inside Embarq’s women-only expeditions

What happens when women drive 4,000 kilometres across India together? For the founders of Embarq, it’s not just a road trip—it’s a shift in how women see themselves and how the world sees them.

The purpose of these expeditions is not simply to travel across India but to change who feels entitled to the road. By putting women behind the wheel for thousands of kilometres, Embarq is challenging social conditioning that limits mobility for women. 

News & updates

• Trial: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be questioned for the first time in a US court on Wednesday about Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users, as a landmark trial over youth social media addiction continues. Meta may have to pay damages if it loses the case, and the verdict could erode Big Tech’s longstanding legal defence against claims of user harm.
• Growth: Creative company Canva ended 2025 on a high note with a 20% increase in monthly active users, partially propelled by the adoption of its AI tools. Canva had more than 265 million monthly active users and over 31 million paid users in 2025, which helped push its ARR to $4 billion by the end of the year.
• AI bets: British semiconductor firm Arm ticked 1.5% higher in pre-market trading, after documents showed NVIDIA sold its stake in the company it once wanted to buy. At the end of Q3, NVIDIA held 1.1 million shares of Arm worth $155.8 million, which the SEC filing showed the company had offloaded.

Which country was the first to host the Summer and Winter Games in the same year?

Answer: France

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