Startup news and updates: Daily roundup (March 5, 2025)

From Prime Venture Partners raising $100 million in its latest fund to India making a strategic bet on its youth with a Rs 500 crore allocation in the Union Budget for a Centre of Excellence (CoE) focused on AI in education, YourStory brings today’s headlines that highlight significant developments across industries.

Here’s a roundup of key stories:

Featured stories

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. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s 2025 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.

“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. Read more. 

Latest news

Niyo-backer Prime Venture Partners secures $100M for its latest fund

Prime Venture Partners—the domestic VC firm that 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 (about Rs 100 crore) across 16-18 companies.

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.

“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. Read more.

PB Fintech's Yash Dahiya pays Rs 9.4 lakh to settle SEBI’s insider trading case

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Tuesday settled an insider trading case involving PB Fintech’s Chairman and CEO, Yashish Dahiya, after he agreed to pay a settlement fee of Rs 9.42 lakh.

The case was related to PB Fintech’s $2 million investment in the UAE-based company, YKNP Marketing Management, which SEBI claimed was not properly disclosed as "unpublished price-sensitive information" (UPSI).

In November 2022, Policybazaar's parent company invested $2 million (about Rs 16.6 crore) in YKNP Marketing Management through its Dubai-based subsidiary, PB Fintech FZ-LLC. Since the investment amount was relatively small compared to PB Fintech’s overall financials, the company believed it was not significant enough to be categorised as price-sensitive information. Read more.

Funding news

Nuuk raises $5M in Series A round led by Vertex Ventures SEAI

Home appliance brand Nuuk raised $5 million (Rs 40 crore) in a Series A funding round led by Vertex Ventures SEAI, with participation from existing investor Good Capital and angel investors Rohit Kapoor (CEO, Swiggy), Vivek Gambhir (ex-CEO, Boat and Godrej Consumer), Richard Rekhy (ex-CEO, KPMG India), Suhail Sameer (ex-CEO, BharatPe), Taru Kapoor (ex-GM, Tinder India & South Asia), and Deep Bajaj (Founder, Sirona Hygiene). 

Founded by Gazal Kalra and Shalabh Gupta, Nuuk builds home appliances catering to millennials and Gen Z consumers. It will use the fresh capital to enhance its product portfolio across home, vacuum cleaners, and meal preparation while expanding into smart IoT devices and other high-performance home solutions. 

Darwinbox raises $140M in funding co-led by Partners Group and KKR

HR tech unicorn Darwinboxhas bagged $140 million in a funding round co-led by Partners Group and KKR, with additional support from Gravity Holdings. The fresh capital will be utilised to enhance product development and expand its global footprint. 

“This investment is a testament to Darwinbox’s strong fundamentals and the trust we have earned from our 1,000+ global customer base,” said Jayant Paleti, Co-founder of Darwinbox. “By placing the employee experience front and center — and ensuring our platform is deeply configurable to diverse local needs — we have helped transform HR for enterprises globally. With top-tier investors backing us, we’re poised to amplify our global momentum and deliver innovative AI-powered solutionsfor thousands of enterprises worldwide,” he added.  

Click to read more.  

Leap Finance gets $100M in debt from HSBC's ASEAN Growth Fund

Leap Finance on Wednesday secured a $100 million debt facility from HSBC under its ASEAN Growth Fund to expand its US operations and partnerships. Leap Finance—the student lending arm of Leap, an end-to-end study abroad platform—has funded over 5,000 students with $250 million in education loans.

It plans to use the funding to deepen its presence in India, expand its presence across the US, among other countries, and increase its university partnerships. At present, it offers its services in over 10 countries.

"Leap's mission is to democratise access to global education and careers for students. With lack of financing often the largest impediment to their global aspirations, this facility will enable us to help hundreds of students make their move abroad. More importantly, in HSBC, we have a partner who for decades has been helping people and businesses open up to global opportunities. This strong alignment of vision makes me very excited about the partnership," said Vaibhav Singh, Co-founder of Leap, in a statement.

Click to read more. 

Other news

Confluent fuels real-time delivery for Swiggy

Data streaming platform Confluent said food delivery platform Swiggy uses the firm’s platform to process orders more efficiently across its network of restaurants, stores, and delivery partners.

Handling billions of orders across 700 cities requires real-time data processing to ensure quick and accurate deliveries. Confluent’s technology helps Swiggy manage this data flow, allowing the platform to match orders with delivery partners and optimise logistics in real-time, it sa.

"The modern customer expects more than just delivery from Swiggy—they rely on us for reliability, transparency, and instant response," said Madhusudhan Rao, CTO at Swiggy. 

“As we prioritize superior consumer experiences, our growth depends on our ability to provide real-time, millisecond-level insights that transform complex operational challenges into smooth, effortless customer interactions,” he added.

(This article will be updated with the latest news throughout the day.)