Startup news and updates: daily roundup (September 8, 2025)
Featured stories
191 Nutrition aims to redefine sports supplements with clean nutrition built for Indian needs
India’s nutritional supplement industry has grown rapidly in recent years, but it falls short when it comes to the needs of serious athletes and fitness-driven individuals.
Imported products are expensive and often lack transparency about their ingredients, while low-cost domestic alternatives are sometimes overloaded with sugar and synthetic additives, or contain poorly researched formulations, says Siddharth Singh, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion and Founder of health and wellness brand 191 Nutrition.
Lack of suitable, reliable options for athletes and health-conscious individuals impacts their sustained performance, effective recovery, and long-term wellness, adds Singh, who is India’s first competitive Black Belt expert in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a four-time World Champion.
To address these gaps in sports nutrition, Singh founded 191 Nutrition over three years ago with a focus on hydration, recovery, and immunity.
Read more here.
Wheels of change: This nonprofit is enabling women to conquer India’s roads
For the past decade, Chennai resident Sivagami has painstakingly stitched a life of dignity and security. This single mother of two children battled stigma for living without a male companion. She made barely enough by doing sewing and odd jobs to run the household. She also lived with an inherent fear of public visibility.
Three years ago, she enrolled in a programme by Delhi-based nonprofit Azad Foundation, and this was the beginning of self-reclamation for her.
The Women with Wheels (WWW) programme, a 17-year-long initiative by the Azad Foundation, is the brainchild of the organisation’s founder, Meenu Vadera, who had a simple but radical intent: turning driving into a dignified livelihood for women.
Read more here.
Overreacting to AI is like over-eating; it only leads to indigestion: Ronnie Screwvala
Artificial Intelligence is not a curiosity to be bookmarked for later. As Ronnie Screwvala, Co-founder and Chairman of higher education and upskilling platform upGrad, puts it, AI is a “permanent shift” that will reorder what counts as valuable work, how learning is delivered, and who gets access to expertise.
Panic is the wrong response. “Overreacting to anything is always a bad idea,” Screwvala warns—a useful corrective in a debate too often fuelled by alarm.
There is also practical good news: AI’s biggest promise may be to multiply scarce human expertise, not merely to replace routine tasks. Screwvala explains, “With AI and bots, I can do a lot of that manually, and I can go from one person to 2,000 people.” He is referring to how technology can take over routine mentoring and feedback, freeing educators and experts to focus on deeper, more complex interactions.
Read more here.
Chhalaang 4.0 promises bigger stage for women technologists with Rs 7 lakh in prizes
On September 13, Bengaluru will witness the fourth edition of Chhalaang: The Leap Forward, one of India’s largest platforms dedicated to women in technology. Organised by HR advisory firm MetaMorph and hosted at BHIVE, the event will bring together 350+ women engineers on ground, with over 9,800+ registrations already received.
Launched in 2022 as a small internal initiative, Chhalaang has grown into a nationwide movement.
Born out of the understanding that many women face structural barriers—career breaks, maternity leave, and systemic bias—Chhalaang was envisioned not as just another coding contest, but as a space where women could innovate, connect, and step into leadership.
Read more here.
Funding news
Venture Catalysts raises Rs 150 Cr to launch new funds, expand leadership
Multi-stage venture investing platform Venture Catalysts has closed a Rs 150 crore (about $18 million) funding round. The new round comprised a mix of primary and secondary transactions.
The company said the fresh capital will be used to strengthen leadership, launch new funds, enhance technology, including AI-driven due diligence and LP reporting, and expand into key startup hubs globally.
The round saw participation from new investors such as Ashish Kacholia and group, Authum Investments, Aishwarya Rai, Karthik Sundar Iyer, Hardik Patel of Finquest, LNB Group, Mukul Agarwal, Shahrukh Khan Family Office, Sakal Media Group, Utpal Sheth and Vinod Dugar of RDB Group.
Read more here.
Other news
Viasat’s global STEM innovation challenge comes to India
Viasat Inc, a satellite communications company, has introduced the India edition of the ‘Viasat: Space for Good 2025’ initiative, a global STEM innovation challenge for students. Following its success in the US and UK, Viasat has collaborated with BSNL and government agencies for the India edition.
The India finalist event will take place in New Delhi on September 26, featuring university-level students.
The India finalists bring a diversity of innovative ideas and personal stories, which include orbital manufacturing hubs, sustainable asteroid resource mining, electromagnetic satellite propulsion, intelligent space debris tracking, plasma-based communication systems, and emergency satellite-based SOS networks.
“We see a lot of interest in space among the public and in schools. Through the Viasat: Space for Good Challenge, we are committed to empowering next generation of STEM leaders across the globe with mentorship, resources and opportunities to showcase solutions,” said Gautam Sharma, Managing Director of India at Viasat.
Nutrify Today opens NutrifyGenie AI to SMEs and start-ups
Nutrify Today has announced that it is opening the full capabilities of its flagship NutrifyGenie AI platform to India’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups. The move, unveiled at the Bharat Nutraverse platform by founder and chief catalyst Amit Srivastava, aims to democratise product development and compliance tools traditionally available only to large pharmaceutical, OTC and FMCG players.
NutrifyGenie AI integrates ingredient scouting, formulation design, claims validation, regulatory guardrails and commercialisation planning into a single workflow, reducing costly rework and speeding compliant launches.
By extending enterprise-grade capabilities to SMEs—often the drivers of category innovation but constrained by limited resources—Nutrify Today positions the platform as a catalyst for ‘responsible nutrition’, with safer, evidence-backed products better equipped for both domestic and global markets.
(The copy will be updated with the latest news throughout the day.)
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