Startup news and updates: Daily roundup (May 28, 2025)

From Unacademy’s co-founders stepping away to Cars24 shutting down its spare parts platform, YourStory brings today’s headlines that highlight significant developments across industries.

Featured Stories

ixigo’s steady rise: From serving Bharat to shaping the future of travel tech with AI

In an interaction with YourStory, ixigo co-founders Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar opened up about the company’s rapid growth and the central role artificial intelligence plays in its strategy.

“We didn’t start as a ticketing platform,” Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO, ixigo, tells YourStory. “Our focus has always been on addressing real pain points for India’s aspiring middle class—people in Tier II and III towns who mostly travel by train or bus and seek budget hotels. That DNA hasn’t changed.”

Read more here.

Flextron’s 10-minute charging could put India’s EV adoption in the fast lane

Flextron is a Bengaluru-based B2B EV tech startup founded by Ameen Khan, Mukesh R Jogi, Crystal Lobo, Nipun Pise, and Royan Rebello. With backgrounds in tech giants like Microsoft and JP Morgan and a shared passion for innovation, the five friends decided to quit their corporate careers to tackle one of India's toughest clean mobility problems: fast and accessible EV charging. 

Read more here.

Latest news

Unacademy co-founders Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini to step away from their roles

Unacademy co-founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini are stepping away from their day-to-day roles at the edtech firm as they shift their focus to AirLearn, the company’s language learning app, which is expected to be spun off into a separate entity, people familiar with the matter told YourStory.

Read more here.

Cars24 shuts down spare parts platform citing buyer mindset

Used car marketplace Cars24 has shut down its pilot programme, Inspare, which was set up in Delhi-NCR to facilitate doorstep delivery of spare parts to automotive workshops.

In a LinkedIn post, Cars24’s CEO Vikram Chopra said workshops that had tie-ups with insurance companies trusted the company’s service. However, for repairs not covered by insurance, workshops had the freedom to choose the spare parts supplier; here they chose the services of a local distributor over the firm’s services.

Read more here.

Myntra gets $125M infusion from Singapore parent company

Fashion ecommerce platform Myntra has secured Rs 1,062.5 crore ($125 million) from its Singapore-based parent company, FK Myntra Holdings.

Myntra's board has allotted 19,43,753 equity shares at an issue price of Rs 5,466 per share through a rights issue, raising the stated amount, according to a regulatory filing accessed from the Registrar of Companies.

Read more here.

PayPal gets RBI nod for facilitating cross-border export payments

PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL), has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a Payment Aggregator for Cross Border Exports (PA-CB-E), the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Read more here.

Salesforce to acquire Informatica in $8B deal 

SaaS major Salesforce said it will acquire cloud data management company Informatica in an all-equity deal valued at $8 billion, as the enterprise software giant deepens its push into artificial intelligence.

The company stated the acquisition will strengthen its data infrastructure to support the development and deployment of agentic AI across enterprises.

Read more here.

Funding news

Orbitt Space raises $1M in funding led by pi Ventures

Space-tech startup founded by former ISRO scientists, Orbitt Space, on Wednesday said it has raised $1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by pi Ventures. IIMA Ventures also participated in the funding round.

The company will use the newly raised funds to accelerate the design and development of Orbitt’s proprietary electric propulsion technology and avionics systems, to build its team, and to begin rigorous testing of its first prototype.

Simply Nam secures strategic investment to expand product portfolio

Simply Nam, a celebrity makeup brand owned by makeup artist Namrata Soni and serial entrepreneur Hanna Stromgren Khan, today announced a strategic fundraise led by the Bhaane Group. 

The company aims to use the investment to expand its product portfolio with new launches, deepen its educational content offerings, and strengthen its omnichannel presence.

Simply Nam has doubled its customer base in the last year with a 40% returning customer rate, and maintaining an average monthly revenue run-rate of Rs 2 crore.

Agritech startup GROWiT raises $3M in Series A round

Potective farming startup GROWiT on Wednesday raised $3 million in a Series A funding led by GVFL, with participation from Veloce Opportunities Fund, JITO, We Founder Circle, Sunicon Ventures Fund, Progrowth Ventures and Hyderabad Angels.

The newly raised funds will be used towards the company’s aggressive expansion plans, deepen its research and development capabilities, and strengthen its technology infrastructure to serve farmers more effectively.

Alternate capital firm ILIOS 72 raised Rs 1 crore in seed funding

ILIOS 72 Alternative Capital on Wednesday raised Rs 1 crore in seed funding from a group of family offices, marking the company’s first external fundraise.

The funding will enable ILIOS to upgrade their technology platform, making it easier for clients to track portfolios and discover new opportunities platform. The newly raised funds will also allow the company to open a new office in Jaipur.

Additionally, the funding will also be utilised in expanding the team to bring more research-backed investment ideas to a wider audience.

Other news:

Duolingo partners with Glance to upskill young India via Lock Screen learning

Language learning platform, Duolingo, on Wednesday partnered with smart lock screen platform Glance to embed Duolingo’s gamified English lessons into Glance’s smart lock screens.

Within three months of the launch, Duolingo’s content on Glance has garnered over 720 million glances.

“At Duolingo, our focus is on keeping things simple, engaging, and effective—so that anyone, anywhere, can make real progress. We are committed to making language learning widely accessible and enjoyable for all, and we’re always looking for new and innovative formats to reach our learners where they are. This partnership with Glance is exciting because it brings bite-sized English learning directly to millions of lock screens, making upskilling in English effortless, interactive, and a natural part of their daily routine,” said Karandeep Singh Kapany, Regional Marketing Director, Duolingo.

Pure Storage partners with SK hynix to meet energy efficiency requirements for hyperscale data centers

NYSE-listed Pure Storage on Wednesday partnered with SK hynix to deliver flash storage products that meet the high-capacity energy requirements for data-intensive hyperscalar environments.

“This collaboration with SK hynix is an exciting step in our mission to deliver superior all-flash storage technology to hyperscalers. By combining SK hynix's advanced QLC products with Pure Storage’s host-based flash management architecture, we can deliver an optimized solution for the hyperscale production environment and AI infrastructure. Pure Storage can further elevate performance, scalability, reliability, and energy efficiency, addressing the unique demands facing today’s data-centric industries,” said Bill Cerreta, GM, Hyperscale, Pure Storage

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