India’s future rests on AI, jobs; Digital-first approach to financial freedom

Perplexity has found a new investor in NuVentures. 

The early-stage VC firm founded by Venk Krishnan made an undisclosed investment in the AI unicorn through a secondary transaction. “Our investment in Perplexity gives us access to the larger ecosystem of AI startups in the US,” NuVentures founder Krishnan told YourStory.

According to Krishnan, the investment elevates NuVenture’s profile, with access to all the key developments in AI. It also gives the VC firm a sharp understanding of how large enterprises look at AI, and scout for startups that could provide the solutions.

ICYMI: Apple accidentally leaked its own top-secret hardware in software code! 

Meanwhile, a 10-year-old British girl, Bodhana Sivanandan, has made chess history by becoming the youngest female player to ever beat a grandmaster!

At 10 years, five months and three days, Sivanandan defeated 60-year-old grandmaster Pete Wells in the final round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool—a record previously set by American Carissa Yip, who was 10 years, 11 months and 20 days old when she defeated a grand master in 2019.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, more than 500 humanoid robots are competing in 26 events ranging from soccer and boxing to sorting medicine and cleaning up at the first World Humanoid Robot Games.

It’s robot vs robot in the ring!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• India’s future rests on AI, jobs
• Digital-first approach to financial freedom

Here’s your trivia for today: What beauty brand started out by selling books?

Interview

India’s future rests on AI, jobs

With over 100 million cryptocurrency owners and a blockchain market projected to grow exponentially, India stands at a technological crossroads on its 79th Independence Day. 

In a thought-provoking live conversation, Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory, sat down with Deepak Garg, Founder of SatoshiWealth and AnywhereJobs, to decode how AI and blockchain could reshape India’s economic trajectory and shape the nation’s next leap forward. 

Forging paths:

• According to Garg, about 300 million jobs will be created over the next 10-20 years in the West owing to ageing populations—a number equivalent to young people entering India’s job market.
• The serial entrepreneur urges India to take inspiration from China, highlighting it as a prime example of how a nation can rapidly expand its energy capacity through sustained policy focus and large-scale investments.
• Garg, being particularly bullish on Bitcoin’s potential, says, “People should take time and study Bitcoin—I believe it will provide the highest return on your time. It’s a genius idea that solves all the issues which exist in the fiat world.”

Startup

Digital-first approach to financial freedom

Founded in 2011 by Harsh Gahlaut and Mayank Bhatnagar, FinEdge is a wealth management platform at the crossroads of human interaction and AI-enabled conversations. 

Key takeaways:

• In 2020, the team started working on its moonshot product, Dreams into Action (DiA). “DiA… dynamically starts making a plausible plan based on your expenses and other aspects of your financial situation,” explains Gahlaut. 
• In its clientele, about 1,400 are NRIs. FinEdge doesn’t charge anything to its clients; DiA is free to use. It makes money through regular mutual funds and through commissions, which are built into the services. 
• FinEdge manages AUM of about Rs 1,500 crore. By steadily improving its tech, the company believes it will acquire one lakh clients by 2031 and manage Rs 1 lakh crore of AUM by 2035.

News & updates

• Revenue: ChatGPT’s app for iOS and Android devices has reached $2 billion in cumulative global consumer spending, according to Appfigures. That figure is approximately 30X the combined lifetime spending of ChatGPT’s rivals on mobile, including Claude, Copilot, and Grok, the analysis indicates.
• Slowdown: China’s economy slowed across the board in July, with factory activity, investment, and retail sales disappointing, suggesting spillovers from US tariffs are casting a pall over its economy. Production at Chinese factories and mines rose at the slowest rate since November.
• Aid: Intel shares rose nearly 4% on Friday on hopes of more financial aid for the turnaround of the struggling chipmaker after a report that the US government may buy a stake. In the latest move, the US government is considering using funds from the 2022 CHIPS Act to take a stake in Intel.

What beauty brand started out by selling books?

Answer: Avon.

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