Prime Venture Partners makes $100M bet; Why India’s bet on AI is its youth

Hello,

A tit-for-tat tariff war sends global markets into a frenzy. 

Tuesday marked the beginning of a new era of trade wars as the US imposed fresh tariffs on its top trading partners—Canada, Mexico, and China. The result: a market bloodbath in waiting. 

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 closed 1.2% lower and the Hang Seng Index was down 0.3%. London’s FTSE 100 opened lower in early trading while the main stock exchanges in Germany and France also fell.  

Closer home, Nifty 50 posted its longest falling streak in its three-decade history. It has fallen about 4% in 10 sessions and 16% from a record high hit in September last year. 

ICYMI: All about the US tariff war. 

Besides the trade wars, crypto bros in the US are not happy after President Donald Trump announced the creation of a strategic crypto reserve for the US that would include not just bitcoin but several other digital currencies—ether, XRP, Solana’s SOL token, and Cardano’s ADA.

While crypto investors expected a strategic bitcoin reserve, by going well beyond bitcoin, the critics say Trump would be using US taxpayer money to buy much riskier assets that have unproven value. 

Lastly, what would be a good benchmark for AI performance? According to California’s Hao AI Lab, it’s the Super Mario Bros. game! 

Find out which AI performed the best here.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Prime Venture Partners bags $100M for latest fund
• Why India’s bet on AI is its youth
• Building a Rs 2,000 Cr company from Bihar

Here’s your trivia for today: Which filmmaker won the most Oscars for the same film?

Investment

Prime Venture Partners bags $100M for latest fund

Prime Venture Partners, the domestic venture capital (VC) firm which has backed startups including Niyo, KredX, and Quiziz, has raised $100 million in its latest fund. The early-stage VC firm plans to invest $2-4 million in initial cheques, with the potential to scale up to $12 million (approximately Rs 100 crore) across 16-18 companies.

Money matters:

• Founding partner Sanjay Swamy told YourStory that the VC firm has already secured around 80% of the fund's commitments and aims to start investing in the latter half of 2025.
• Prime Venture Partners has received commitments from global institutional investors such as family offices, university endowments, and fund-of-funds from the US, Singapore, Europe, and the Middle East. 
• “Generally we are of the philosophy that early returns are a bad thing. Early returns happen when companies don’t do great and they get acquired. It’s the late returns—when companies become multi-billion dollar outcomes—what helps us or any VC move the needle,” Swamy said. 

Funding Alert

Startup: InsuranceDekho

Amount: $70M

Round: Equity

Startup: Rezolv

Amount: $3.5M

Round: Seed

Startup: Deciml

Amount: $3M

Round: Seed

In-depth

Why India’s bet on AI is its youth

As the US and China capture headlines with massive projects and breakthrough models in AI, India has taken a distinctive approach by deciding to invest in its youth. FM Nirmala Sitharaman’s Union Budget included a Rs 500 crore allocation for a Centre of Excellence (CoE) focused specifically on AI for education. 

Industry experts view this comprehensive approach as addressing a critical need in India's AI ecosystem—bridging the gap between theoretical research and practical implementation in education.

Building the workforce:

• “The CoE should serve as an independent fulcrum of activities relating to AI and education. This, in my view, should result in creating application development teams composed of AI researchers, development engineers, designers, teachers, education experts, and others," said Prof P J Narayanan, Director of IIIT Hyderabad.
• Ankush Sachdeva, CEO of GenAI firm CoRover, outlines some of the practical applications being envisioned: “The new CoE aims to develop personalised learning models, automated assessments, and AI-powered tutoring systems by partnering with top educational institutions, research organisations, and private companies."
• The workforce development aspect is overseen by an industry-heavy apex committee, co-chaired by Sridhar Vembu, who recently transitioned from CEO to chief scientist at SaaS major Zoho. The committee focuses on aligning R&D with rural development projects.

SMB

Building a Rs 2,000 Cr company from Bihar

Ajeet Kumar Singh, Pankaj Kumar, and Ajay Kumar Sinha, who began their career as loan recovery agents for the State Bank of India (SBI) in Bihar, have now transformed into entrepreneurs, running a financial services institution focused on customers in rural India with assets under management of Rs 2,000 crore.

SAVE Group has business correspondent (BC) partnerships with four public sector banks—SBI, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Central Bank.

Key takeaways:

• Today, SAVE Group operates through four key business segments—BC services, microfinance for small-ticket loans, NBFC service for business loans, and housing finance. It has 15,000 customer service points across the country, with 90% of them situated in rural areas.
• The company’s credit underwriters’ team collects information about each customer, including whether they own a house, their spending habits, general lifestyle, and other such details.
• The group raised funding of $13 million from Incofin and Maj Invest in May 2024. It also acquired Bengaluru-based microfinance company SaGraha in 2022. The total turnover of the company is Rs 550.91 crore.

News & updates

• IPO: OYO is accelerating its IPO plans as it nears a crucial year-end debt repayment deadline. According to Bloomberg, creditors, including Mizuho Financial Group Inc., are pressuring founder Ritesh Agarwal to settle a $383 million loan—part of a larger financing package—if OYO does not go public by October.
• Performance: Saudi oil giant Aramco will slash its dividend payouts by nearly a third this year, meaning fewer funds for the kingdom as it races to complete several mammoth projects and possibly faces a wider budget deficit. Aramco expected to declare total dividends of $85.4 billion in 2025, down sharply from last year's payout of over $124 billion.
• New product: British smartphone startup Nothing debuted a new handset, Phone (3a), it hopes can shake the mobile industry out of a perceived innovation slowdown. The Phone (3a) will retail at a starting price of £329—or about $414—while Phone (3a) Pro, a souped-up version of the device with better camera features, will start at £449.

Which filmmaker won the most Oscars for the same film? 

Answer: Academy Award-winning director Sean Baker has become the first person to win four Oscars in the same year for his film Anora in 2025.

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