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One quick thing: Coursera to acquire Udemy, forming $2.5 billion platform for AI training 

In today’s newsletter: 

• Urban Company vs Snabbit vs Pronto: Funds rush in 
• More dry powder for Speciale Invest, Kae Capital 
• Mitsubishi's India chip play

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Forget dusting shelves — India’s home-services startups are vacuuming up venture capital at speed.

New cash, new cities, new stakes in the 15-minute sweepstakes.

• Pronto is in talks to raise $25 million at a $100 million valuation, with Epiq Capital set to join Glade Brook, General Catalyst and Bain, sources tell us

• The company has scaled from 1,000–2,000 to nearly 6,000 daily orders, now active across seven cities

Built for speed, Pronto runs a vertically integrated worker network, trading marketplace lightness for control and reliability.

Bengaluru beckons — and capital follows the corridor.

• Weeks ago, rival Snabbit scored $30 million at a ~$180 million valuation, signalling investor heat in instant services

Both Snabbit and Pronto have moved HQs to Bengaluru, chasing tech talent and product depth.

• Investor loyalties are split: Glade Brook, GC and Epiq back Pronto; Nexus and Lightspeed are betting Snabbit wins

The incumbents aren’t sleeping — and the market isn’t slowing.

• Urban Company is pushing into faster-turnaround services, adding pressure on young upstarts to prove density and durability

• The segment is capital hungry by design — dense networks, tight routing and trained workers make scaling costly

With funds now flooding the category, the real race begins: speed is table stakes — execution decides the winner.

Dig deeper

Venture capital firms are showing no signs of slowing down and continue to be on a fundraising spree. 

Speciale Invest has announced a Rs 1,400 crore growth fund to back deep tech companies that need capital at a later stage. 

“What we’ve learned over eight years is that many deep-tech companies succeed technically, but stall because there isn’t enough growth capital when they need to scale...," said Vishesh Rajaram, cofounder and Managing Partner at Speciale told us when when asked why such a fund is needed. 

The VC firm, which will take the fund live next year, is largely a specialist in early-stage deals and has roped in Vijay Jacob to lead growth deals. 

• Jacob was a founding member at NewQuest Capital Partners, now part of TPG NewQuest

While Speciale Invest will primarily back deep tech startups, there’s more for the sector, and even the ecosystem. 

• Kae Capital, an early-stage VC fund, is in talks to raise $100-110 million for its fourth fund, we were told
  
  
• The fund will focus on deep tech but also back AI, intelligent automation, cybersecurity, defence, aerospace, and other sectors 

About 80-85% of the capital will go towards early-stage deals, signalling no change from the strategy followed earlier. 

• Both VC funds raising fresh monies will mean more dry powder available for the ecosystem, which is already sitting on over $4 billion in capital waiting to be deployed

Fireside, Sauce VC, Accel, Nexus, Elev8 Venture Partners and several other funds have raised fresh funds this year, as reported by us earlier. 

Urban India is where the climate battle will be won or lost. Siemens is equipping cities with digital tools that make energy use transparent, assets circular, and buildings people‑centric. From EV charging networks and AI‑driven grid software to real‑time building performance analytics, Siemens Xcelerator enables infrastructure that’s not only efficient but accountable. Sustainability at scale starts here - one smart building at a time. Read the story  

As India builds fabs, global chipmakers are eyeing the packaging door.

Mitsubishi Electric India (MEI) has begun early discussions with Indian advanced test and packaging (ATMP) and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) firms to supply silicon carbide (SiC) chips for local packaging, the firm's semiconductor and power electronics business head Hitesh Bhardwaj told us. 

• The Japanese major is open to supplying SiC chips to Indian players looking to build packaged power devices

SiC chips for local packaging and commercialisation. Focus remains on enabling power electronics, not setting up chip manufacturing in India.

• Current products continue to be imported from Japan and sold domestically

Discussions are currently underway with a "couple" of Indian ATMP companies and are still at an exploratory stage.

• Indian firms are evaluating uses of Mitsubishi’s SiC chips, Bhardwaj said

Mitsubishi sees SiC overtaking silicon-based devices over the next 4–5 years.

• Bhardwaj expects demand from EVs, chargers, railways and industrial power electronics

Go deeper

As global tech spending tightens, MoEngage is finding momentum where others are stalling. 

• CEO Raviteja Dodda says enterprises are steadily migrating away from legacy marketing clouds like Salesforce and Adobe in favour of AI-first, outcome-driven platforms 

Fresh off a $280-million fundraise and nearing profitability, MoEngage is eyeing 35% growth, selective acquisitions and an IPO-ready roadmap as it weighs a possible India flip. Find out more

• OpenAI has held funding talks with investors to raise tens of billions of dollars at a valuation of $750 billion.
  
• Rohit Prasad, one of Amazon’s most senior AI executives and head of its artificial general intelligence unit, will leave the company at the end of the year as part of a broader restructuring of its AI and advanced technology teams.

Hollywood just cut the cord. After nearly a century on broadcast TV, the Academy Awards will move off ABC and stream for free on YouTube starting in 2029. 

• ABC keeps the show through the 100th Oscars in 2028, but then Google takes over—red carpet, nominations, Governors Awards and all 

It’s the first major awards show to fully ditch television, handing one of pop culture’s biggest nights to a platform with 2 billion viewers. Find out more 

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