Startup news and updates: Daily roundup (May 30, 2025)

YourStory presents the daily news roundup from the Indian startup ecosystem and beyond. Here's the roundup for Friday, May 30, 2025.

May 30, 2025 - 21:20

Startup news and updates: Daily roundup (May 30, 2025)

From Grammarly raising $1 billion in funding led by General Catalyst to Instamart appointing Ankit Jain as Senior Vice President - Operations, YourStory brings today’s headlines that highlight significant developments across industries.

Feature stories

Surat’s Indo Era is bringing affordable ethnic wear to India’s Tier II and III cities

From big fat Indian weddings, especially those involving A-list celebrities, and seasonal festivities to fashion influencers’ ‘mix and match’ philosophies and wearing “Indian” styles—fashion today has helped many young people to find their style, rooted in tradition but still has a modern touch to it. With rising aspirations and growing disposable incomes, the demand for affordable yet elegant ethnic wear has reached new heights.

Cashing in on this is Indo Era, headquartered in one of India’s major textile hubs, Surat. Founded in 2018 by Tanwani, Deepak Sheta (CFO), and Ambrish Miyani (COO), Indo Era started with 120 SKUs (stock-keeping units) of women’s ethnic and Indo-western wear, which has expanded to over 4,800 SKUs.

A Song for Eresha: An intersection of mythology and reality through dance

Audiences today are drawn towards more nuanced, meaningful cinema, and A Song for Eresha fits the bill. Directed by AK Srikanth, the feature film in English follows the fictional story of Eresha, a much venerated head of a prestigious arts institute called Aalayam.

The protagonist, Eresha (Savitha Sastry), falls in love with a young exchange student, Anvesha (Mayurakshi Sen) at her institute, threatening to put everything she had built at stake. For the 50th anniversary celebrations of the institute, Eresha and her team are launching a dance project called the Mortality of Urvashi.

“The storyline progresses with Eresha getting into a one-sided relationship with this person, who is viewing this dynamic similar to Arjuna’s perception of Urvashi, whom he considered god-like,” says Srikanth, whose earlier works Slow Rivers, Dvija, and Colors: White have won him accolades from critics and audiences alike.

ToggleNow is building the backbone of SAP GRC for mid-sized enterprises

As businesses increasingly migrate to digital ecosystems, the demand for robust governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) frameworks within ERP environments has shot up.

SAP is widely considered one of the leading enterprise resource planning systems, however, it has long posed significant challenges around access governance, cybersecurity, and compliance automation, especially for mid-sized organisations with limited resources.

ToggleNow is taking on established players in this space, building tools and services tailored to streamline GRC and securitywithin SAP environments. It has a total team strength of 126 employees, with 96 based in India and 30 located across international markets.

The New York Times signs AI licensing deal with Amazon

The New York Times Company has signed an AI licensing agreement with Amazon. As part of the deal, the ecommerce giant will utilise the news outlet's editorial content to train its AI (artificial intelligence) systems.

The multiyear AI deal comes nearly two years after the media house filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Sam Altman-led OpenAI and Microsoft.

The joint effort will integrate The Times’s editorial content across a range of Amazon customer experiences, the media outlet said. In addition to news coverage, the deal includes content from NYT Cooking, the publication’s food and recipe platform, as well as The Athletic, its sports media outlet.

Grammarly raises $1B in growth financing led by General Catalyst

Writing assistant tool Grammarly has raised $1 billion in financing from General Catalyst. The Boston-based firm will utilise the investment from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund to expand its sales and marketing efforts and pursue acquisitions.

The capital will also strengthen product innovation and improve market reach, the company said in a statement. With over 40 million daily users, the company generates over $700 million in annual revenue.

“Integrating Coda and Grammarly has unlocked tremendous potential for how people work and communicate. I’m energised by the innovation happening across our teams as Grammarly has become a productivity platform serving everyone from individual students to growing businesses to large enterprises,” said Shishir Mehrotra, Grammarly CEO.

Visual AI sports tech startup KhiladiPro secures $1M to power youth fitness

AI-powered sports tech platform KhiladiPro has raised approximately $1 million in its latest funding round. The investment was led by Shastra VC, an early-stage fund focused on deep-tech and AI startups and MGA Ventures, known for backing early-stage ventures with a differentiated proposition.

The capital will be used to accelerate the development of the company’s proprietary AI models, expand its reach in domestic markets, and enhance support systems for young athletes across the country.

KPro also saw participation from prominent family offices and angel investors, including M Pallonji, Jeena and Co., Ayaz Billawala, Nimesh Kampani and the former CFO of Kotak Bank Jaimin Bhat.

Other news

Instamart appoints Ankit Jain as Senior Vice President of Operations

Instamart has appointed Ankit Jain as Senior Vice President - Operations. In his new role, he will lead supply chain management, dark store operations, delivery experience, and network expansion.

Jain brings over two decades of experience in supply chain and logistics. He previously served as SVP and Head of Grocery and Large Supply Chain at Flipkart, where he also led the Ekart Design function. Prior to that, he spent 14 years at Unilever in leadership roles across logistics, warehousing, and demand planning across multiple regions.

Launched in August 2020, Instamart currently operates in over 120 cities across India.

Unicommerce appoints new leaders for customer success and marketing

Unicommerce eSolutions has appointed Abhishek Mangaraj as Senior Director - Customer Success and Divya Sharma as Director - Marketing.

Mangaraj, previously VP at Kapture CX, brings nearly 15 years of experience across SaaS, ecommerce, and CRM. He will lead customer success, key accounts, and retention. Sharma, with prior roles at CleverTap, Locus, and Ai Palette, will oversee brand strategy, demand generation, and integrated marketing across Unicommerce, Shipway, and Convertway.

Unicommerce supports 10,000+ brands across India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East through platforms like Uniware, Shipway, and Convertway.

KiranaPro acquires Likeo to integrate AR virtual try-on in BLACK fashion platform

KiranaPro, an ONDC-integrated, AI-driven quick commerce platform, has acquired Likeo (likeo.me), a startup specialising in augmented reality–based virtual try-on technology.

This acquisition integrates Likeo’s virtual trial room into BLACK, KiranaPro’s fashion commerce platform targeting Gen Z and tech-savvy consumers.

With this integration, BLACK becomes the first Indian app to offer AI-powered virtual try-on across apparel, jewellery, and eyewear, enhancing the shopping experience through interactive and personalized features. The rollout will begin with early access to fashion and accessories, aiming to improve product discovery and reduce return rates.

Saurav Kumar, Founder and CEO of Likeo, will join KiranaPro’s leadership to drive AI and visual computing efforts supporting BLACK’s development.

Appy Pie unveils Hindi AI model

Appy Pie has launched PixelYatra, an AI model trained specifically in the Hindi language for generating cards, banners, posters, and social creatives. PixelYatra has been trained on a diverse dataset consisting of Devanagari script, context-rich Hindi phrases etc.

“PixelYatra is built for Bharat,” said Abhinav Girdhar, CEO of Appy Pie. “It understands the language, the emotion, and the cultural nuance behind every prompt. Whether it’s a wedding invite, a Diwali card, or a local shop banner, PixelYatra enables anyone to create beautiful visuals in Hindi—instantly and effortlessly.”

SA Technologies unveils AI platform

SA Technologies has introduced an AI platform called Honest AI, which claims to deliver production-ready, enterprise-grade automation in a span of four weeks. The platform can also be integrated with existing IT systems and security protocols automating workflows.

The company also claimed that its platform will be one-third the cost of existing AI implementations.

BUSINESSNEXT launches LENDINGNEXT to simplify lending for financial institutions

Deeptech company BUSINESSNEXT has launched LENDINGNEXT, an AI-powered platform to streamline and optimize the entire lending lifecycle for banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs).

LENDINGNEXT offers a single, unified solution for front, middle, and back-office operations across all retail and corporate lending products, promising to make lending faster, easier, and more accurate.

Heph partners with Capri Global

Insurance SaaS platform Heph has partnered up with Capri Global Capital to expand its scope in lending and financial services. Capri has chosen Heph as its technology partner owing to its comprehensive white-label Insurance SaaS platform tailored to BFSI needs.

Through this collaboration, Capri Loans will seamlessly embed insurance products across its lending ecosystem, including the introduction of a Group Health Insurance product. Having integrated Heph’s multi-insurer, multi-channel capabilities, Capri Global will offer customized third party insurance solutions directly within its loan products, driving a new revenue stream while enhancing customer value.

Edited by Jyoti Narayan