Reliance gets an AI unit; Building India’s forensic future

Chennai-based A99 (formerly known as Artha99) is no stranger to the investment landscape, having previously backed EV maker Raptee and med-tech firm EzeRx. The advanced manufacturing-focused venture capital firm is now raising its third fund with a target corpus of $100 million (~Rs 850 crore), Founder and Managing Partner Vignesh Shankar tells YourStory. 

Speaking of funds, Elevation Capital, which has backed companies including Swiggy and MakeMyTrip, has launched a late-stage vehicle, Elevation Holdings. The new vehicle is expected to have a target corpus of $400 million and is looking to invest in 10-15 companies, The Economic Times reported. 

Meanwhile, Reliance Retail, India’s largest retailer, reported record expansion across its consumer businesses as it sharpened its push into the country’s fast-growing consumer market. Isha Ambani, who leads the retail business, said Reliance added 2,659 stores over the year.

Lastly, ChatGPT continues to dominate the chatbot space with over 46.5 billion visits in 2025, a whopping 48.36% of the total chatbot market traffic. Its traffic is roughly four times the visits on the next 10 chatbots combined.

And, while we might use chatbots to do everything from drafting emails to revealing our deepest secrets, it’s worth remembering that Gen AI bots are statistical text generators and not an oracle. 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Reliance gets an AI unit
• AI solving real enterprise problems
• Building India’s forensic future

Here’s your trivia for today: Which James Bond actor once worked as a coffin polisher?

Artificial Intelligence

Reliance gets an AI unit

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Reliance Industries and Meta are setting up a joint venture to develop AI solutions for Indian businesses, in one of the most high-profile tie-ups yet in the country’s evolving AI market. The venture will be capitalised at about Rs 855 crore (roughly $100 million), with Reliance holding a 70% stake and Meta holding the remaining stake. 

The new entity aims to deliver AI in two main formats: a full-stack platform-as-a-service that allows organisations to customise and deploy Gen AI models, and a suite of pre-configured applications designed for both cross-functional and industry-specific use cases. 

Mega partnership:

• The partnership will focus on building enterprise tools powered by Meta’s open-source Llama models. The solutions will target sectors ranging from sales and marketing to IT operations, customer service, and finance. 
• By combining Meta’s engineering expertise with Reliance’s nationwide reach and digital infrastructure, including Jio’s connectivity network and RIL’s AI data centres, the partners can lower costs and ensure secure, low-latency deployments. 
• Reliance will also expand its partnership with Google Cloud to build an AI-focused cloud region in Jamnagar, designed to run demanding AI workloads across Reliance businesses. While Reliance will build and power the facilities, Google Cloud will bring next-gen GenAI compute and a fully integrated AI stack.

<Top Funding Deals of the Week>

Startup: TransBnk

Amount: $25M

Round: Series B

Startup: Kiwi

Amount: $24M

Round: Series B

Startup: Altum Credo Home Finance

Amount: ~$19.4M

Round: Equity

DevSparks

AI solving real enterprise problems

Artificial intelligence is the new buzzword in the world of technology, with solutions being churned out literally every day with the goal of automating several processes. However, experts reiterate that the focus of AI should always be on solving real problems faced by enterprises. 

The panel discussion on ‘GCC Innovation in 2026: AI, Frontier Tech and the Big Opportunity for Tech Talent’, at DevSparks Hyderabad, saw panellists unanimously agreeing on the view that AI is bringing far-reaching changes.

Key takeaways:

• Sri Lakshmi Tadepalli, VP – IT, Global Clearance, FedEx, said, AI is helping enterprises move up the value chain by automating repetitive tasks, but the focus should always remain on how it is going to solve the important problems.
• In the case of the mines and steel industry, the priority is safety. Neeraj Chauhan, Head of Technology GCC – India, ArcelorMittal Global Business and Technologies, said that given the tough conditions employees operate in, the primary focus of technology is on their health and safety.
• Enterprises focused on providing technology for the capital markets also have different priorities. Ludwig Heinzelmann, Head of Global IT Delivery Network, Deutsche Börse Group, said the firm’s constant challenge is building highly reliable systems that do not have any outages.

Interview

Building India’s forensic future

In Lucknow, the UP State Institute of Forensic Science is attempting something unprecedented: merging law and laboratories to build a world-class model for justice in the digital age. 

At the centre of this project is Dr GK Goswami, Additional Director General of Police, and the institute’s founding director. He believes the integration of science, law, and technology is the only way to tackle the rapidly growing menace of cybercrime. Watch the full interview here.

News & updates

• Economy: India’s economy grew at a faster-than-expected annual rate of 7.8% in the quarter to the end of June, boosted by the manufacturing, construction, and service sectors. While the overall GDP print for the Q1 FY26 came in higher than the 6.7% expansion forecast by economists in a Reuters poll, economists pointed to signs of a slowdown.
• Ecommerce: Alibaba Group reported a triple-digit percentage gain in AI-related product revenue and a better-than-anticipated 26% jump in sales from the cloud division—the business most closely tied to the post-DeepSeek AI boom. Its shares gained over 9% in US trading.
• EVs: Chinese EV maker BYD’s quarterly profit fell for the first time in over three years, as its expansion hit a speed bump amid a government campaign against price wars. Net profit at the world’s biggest EV producer totalled $894.74 million in Q2, down 29.9% from a year earlier, after rising 100.4% in Q1.

Which James Bond actor once worked as a coffin polisher?

Answer: Sean Connery

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