One quick thing: MeitY ordered takedown of over 3,000 apps from Google Play Store in April–May 2025 

In today’s newsletter: 

• IndiaAI picks IIT Bombay, Tech M, Fractal, others for sovereign AI models
• Nikhil Kamath leads Infra.Market’s Rs 730 crore round
• Gameskraft crisis deepens as 120 are laid off

P.S.: The AI Edge drops Saturday: one smart read to make sense of AI every week.

• FYI: Already a Tech3 subscriber? You’re set. It comes included with your Tech3 subscription

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? You can sign up for Tech3 here

The IndiaAI Mission has chosen a fresh cohort of partners to develop foundational large language models (LLMs), including IIT Bombay, Tech Mahindra, and Fractal Analytics. 

• The move marks a scale-up in ambition, with IIT Bombay’s BharatGen set to build a trillion-parameter model, India’s largest so far

Eight new entities have been selected: 

• Avataar AI
• IIT Bombay Consortium – BharatGen
• Fractal Analytics 
• Tech Mahindra  
• Zeinteiq Aitech Innovations
• Genloop Intelligence  
• NeuroDX (Intellihealth)
• Shodh AI

These follow the first cohort announced earlier this year, which included Gnani.ai, Gan.AI, Soket, and Sarvam.

IIT Bombay’s BharatGen will build a suite of sovereign, open-source models, including domain-specific LLMs for agriculture, governance, finance, health, law, and education. 

• The plan is to scale up to one trillion parameters, supported by clusters of H100 GPUs deployed in phases 

IndiaAI is extending support worth Rs 988.6 crore for this effort. The models will be open source and with open weights, while the intellectual property will remain with IIT Bombay and the IndiaAI Mission.

Fractal Analytics, meanwhile, will focus on healthcare. The company aims to build a suite of reasoning LLMs, up to 70 billion parameters in size, that can power medical diagnosis, personalised treatment, drug discovery, and optimised clinical workflows for India. 

• It will receive 4096 H100 GPUs over nine months, with total IndiaAI support pegged at Rs 34.58 crore

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the new round of selections reflects how the government is broadening its approach. 

"So far we were looking at 120 billion parameters for developing foundational models, but now we have IIT Bombay with 1 trillion parameters,” he said. 

He added that the country will need not just large-scale models but also many smaller, domain-specific ones to solve problems in areas such as healthcare.

• The government will also develop more than 500 data labs under the IndiaAI Mission to boost talent and infrastructure for artificial intelligence, Vaishnaw said

Vaishnaw added that the models from the first cohort are progressing well and that India will have multiple homegrown foundational models ready by the time the AI Impact Summit takes place in February 2026.

Infra.Market has raised Rs 730 crore at a Rs 24,600 crore ($2.8 billion) valuation, in what’s likely its final private round before going public. 

The funding was led by Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, who invested Rs 200 crore through his family office. 

• Founders Souvik Sengupta and Aaditya Sharda invested Rs 250 crore, increasing their combined stake to nearly 30% and securing official promoter status 

• Existing investors like Accel, Tiger Global, Nexus, and Evolvence also joined the round

The company is expected to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) this month, with an IPO slated for later in 2025. 

• Infra.Market closed FY25 with revenues of Rs 18,000 crore, EBITDA of Rs 1,500 crore and profit after tax of Rs 300 crore

Since its founding in 2016, it has built a network of 250+ manufacturing units and 10,000 retail touchpoints, becoming a leader in ready-mix concrete, AAC blocks, and flooring tiles.

Beyond bolstering liquidity ahead of the IPO, the round is intended to increase the founders’ stake in the company to nearly 30%, officially classifying them as promoters.

• This equity raise follows a $150 million debt round in June from MARS Growth Capital, a joint venture between MUFG Bank and Liquidity Group 

It also comes after an earlier $120 million equity infusion from Tiger Global, Foundamental, Evolvence, and marquee investors such as Ashish Kacholia and Nikhil Kamath.

Find out more

The troubles of real-money gaming (RMG) company Gameskraft continue to deepen.

Gameskraft is laying off 120 people as part of a company-wide restructuring, with the cuts expected to impact multiple teams and functions. 

• The figure could rise further, with the firm warning that more structural changes may be needed as the business "continues to evolve in response to external realities"

RMG firms, including Gameskraft, are grappling with a new business reality after India’s recent online gaming law imposed a blanket ban on online money games.

• Last month, Gameskraft discontinued its online rummy apps, including Rummyculture, which generated most of the company’s revenues, after the legislation was passed by Parliament

The bootstrapped startup is also embroiled in a fraud scandal involving its former CFO Ramesh Prabhu who has allegedly siphoned off funds amounting to Rs 270.43 crore over nearly five years. 

• In an email to Gameskraft, Prabhu confessed to diverting company funds into personal futures and options (F&O) trading for nearly five years, causing losses of over Rs 250 crore

The firm stated that it had to write off Rs 270.43 crore in its FY25 numbers, dragging net profit to Rs 706 crore from Rs 947 crore in FY24. 

Gameskraft is the latest in the growing list of real-money gaming companies that have carried out large-scale layoffs.

• Nearly 2,000 employees have lost their jobs across firms such as Head Digital Works, Mobile Premier League (MPL), Baazi Games, Games24x7, and Zupee since the government ban last month

 Read more

• PayPal and Alphabet’s Google have forged an online-shopping partnership that will combine their respective payments and artificial intelligence tools for transactions.
  
  
• SoftBank's plans to set up a joint venture with OpenAI to bring AI services to corporate customers in Japan are significantly behind schedule, sources told Reuters.

Washington just got a new monument, but not the kind you’ll find in travel booklets. 

• A 12-foot golden statue of Donald Trump clutching a Bitcoin was unveiled outside the US Capitol, courtesy of a group of crypto investors

The spectacle, equal parts carnival and controversy, was designed to spark debate about the future of digital currency and Uncle Sam’s grip on financial markets.

Find out more

Note: By subscribing to Tech3, you have already made the right choice. Top it up with a premium offering, the Moneycontrol Pro Panorama, a newsletter that gives you a sharp take on macros, markets, business and finance. Sign up for Pro from this link to get this newsletter in your inbox and also a host of content enjoyed by over a million subscribers.