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In today’s newsletter:

• Nexus Venture eyes $700 million for eighth fund 
• Trump slams US tech hiring in India 
• AI talent war? Game on: Google's Sundar Pichai

P.S.: Introducing the Tech3 Podcast, your daily dose of tech and startup insights. Monday to Friday! Check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

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If you thought venture capital firms were already sitting on enough dry powder… add some more to that.

Nexus Venture Partners is in talks to raise as much as $700 million, or about Rs 6,000 crore, for its eighth fund, we were told. 

• The amount matches what the investor had raised in its seventh fund in 2023
  
  
• The $700 million raised in 2023 was the largest fund Nexus has secured since its inception 16 years ago

With its new fund, Nexus is expected to continue backing next-generation companies in artificial intelligence (AI), software, fintech, and commerce, in line with its recent investment strategy.

• Nexus invests across stages. It writes smaller cheques but also goes all the way beyond $100 million in a single round for companies it strongly believes in (read: Zepto)
  

The VC is known for backing Delhivery, Zepto, Unacademy, Postman, Snapdeal, Rapido, Agilitas and several other startups. 

• It has also made good returns by betting on Olx, Proptiger, Sedemac, Unicommerce, WhiteHat Jr and several others

Nexus’ new fund adds to the growing pile of unallocated capital waiting to be deployed.

• There is already $12-15 billion in dry powder in the Indian VC ecosystem, as per several industry estimates 

There’s also a broader trend at play.

• A slew of VC funds, like Accel, Fireside Ventures and now even Nexus, are choosing to keep the fund size unchanged from the previous round 

• More capital means there will be more deployment pressure, a Partner at a large VC fund tells us 

However, not everyone is following this playbook.

• Take A91 Partners, for instance. The investor raised $665 million in its third fund—a slight increase from the $550 million raised in 2021 for its second fund

Dig deeper

The AI race is on...and it’s got a red cap on it. 

US President Donald Trump is going all-in on AI and all-out against outsourcing. At a high-profile AI summit in Washington, Trump slammed American tech giants for hiring in India and building factories in China.

“Under President Trump, those days are over,” he said, urging tech companies to be “all-in for America.”

He accused Silicon Valley of "radical globalism" and exploiting American freedoms while sending jobs and profits abroad.

This is not the first time Trump has targeted India over tech outsourcing. Earlier in May, he warned Apple that it would face steep tariffs if it continued building iPhones outside the US.

Also read: How Trump’s new AI push is reshaping Silicon Valley’s relationship with Washington

The Trump administration also unveiled a 26-page AI Action Plan, a blueprint to ensure unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance.

The AI Action Plan aims to reestablish US dominance in AI through three pillars: 

• Accelerate innovation: Deregulate AI, favour open-source, embed AI in government, and promote free speech and American values in frontier AI systems 
  
  
• Build infrastructure: Invest in power grids, chips, and secure data centres; train workers to build AI-ready systems
  
  
• Global AI leadership: Export the US tech stack, enforce chip export controls, and counter China in global standard-setting

Trump’s vision is clear: no compromise on AI dominance. 

Calling the AI race "one of the most important technological revolutions in the history of the world," Trump said America would not allow foreign nations to define the terms of this new era. 

“Our children will not live on a planet controlled by the algorithms of adversaries advancing values and interests contrary to our own,” he said.

If there’s one thing everyone in tech is talking about, it's the raging AI talent war. And it's only getting wilder! So, what does Google CEO Sundar Pichai have to say about it?

Google has an "extraordinary breadth and depth of talent," built through over a decade of "deep investment", Pichai said during the company’s earnings call.

• The tech giant will continue to invest in peopleand the compute needed to capture opportunities in the rapidly-evolving AI sector 

Google parent Alphabet is raising its capital spending forecast for 2025 to $85 billion from $75 billion, primarily to invest in servers and build out data centres. 

• This move came on the back of a strong performance in Q2 2025, driven by major gains in its cloud and advertising business 

Also read: Google earnings keep Silicon Valley’s AI flywheel spinning

Google and other tech giants such as Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI are fiercely competing to attract and retain top researchers, engineers and developers as the race to dominate AI innovation intensifies.

• In particular, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg has been doling out compensation packages of up to nine figures to attract top AI talent for its new superintelligence lab. 

Several prominent executives and researchers from Google DeepMind have left to join rivals such as Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI.

Meanwhile, Google is also scooping up top AI talent from fast-growing startups through so-called "hackquisition" — or poach the people, skip the (company) purchase type of deals — with Windsurf and Character.AI.

It's always not about the money, Pichai says.

• Top researchers want a combination of things: Being at the frontier driving progress, which makes the mission and the state-of-the-art nature of the work crucial

They also want access to compute and the opportunity to collaborate with the best people in the industry.

"I think we are pretty competitive on all of those fronts," he said. 

Google has approached the Supreme Court to challenge the NCLAT's March ruling on the CCI’s antitrust order against the company for misusing its dominant position in relation to Play Store policies. 

• Bengaluru-based B2B fintech software firm Perfios has launched a new GenAI-powered Intelligence Stack aimed at transforming operations in the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector.
  
  
• Semiconductor startup Netrasemi has raised Rs 107 crore in a Series A funding round led by Zoho Corporation and existing investor Unicorn India Ventures.

Divya Deshmukh isn’t here to play nice…she’s here to win titles and break records.

The 18-year-old knocked out former world champion Zhongyi Tan, securing a spot in the final of the Women’s World Cup and becoming the first Indian woman to enter the prestigious Candidates tournament.

• On the other board, Koneru Humpy drew a positional slugfest against top seed Lei Tingjie. Now it’s rapid tiebreak time.

India’s got two queens in the mix. One’s already in the throne room. The other’s knocking. Find out more

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