YourStory brings you today’s headlines with the latest developments across sectors.
Featured stories
Meet the ‘Flower Lady of Manipur’
Chokhone Krichena, founder of Manipur-based social enterprise Dianthe, is helping over 300 women farmers turn their love of flowers into income. Founded in 2021, Dianthe works with women in Mao, Senapati district, to source locally grown flowers, preserve them through natural drying techniques, and sell them to customers across India. What began during the Covid-19 pandemic as an effort to find buyers for surplus flowers has grown into a business supplying home décor products to customers in 20 states.
Funding news
Karta AI raises $3 million to scale voice AI for financial services
Karta AI, a voice AI platform that automates inbound customer operations for banks, financial services and insurance companies, has raised $3 million in a funding round led by PeerCapital and Cedar Hill Capital. Wyser VC, CDM Capital and Seedstars also participated. The company says it handles around two million customer conversations every month across more than 25 languages and is already deployed with financial institutions.
The platform uses AI agents to understand customer requests and resolve issues such as failed payments, blocked cards, loan queries and insurance claims by coordinating actions across enterprise systems. Unlike conventional voice bots that primarily answer questions, Karta AI aims to complete customer service workflows autonomously, escalating cases to human agents when needed. Its technology also learns from past interactions to improve resolution over time.
CureBay raises Rs 100 crore in Pre-Series C round
Rural healthcare platform CureBay has raised Rs 100 crore in a Pre-Series C funding round led by IvyCap Ventures. The round includes Rs 69 crore in equity from IvyCap Ventures and existing investors, along with over Rs 30 crore in debt from Trifecta Capital, Alteria Capital and VentureSoul Partners.
Founded in 2021 by Priyadarshi Mohapatra, Shobhan Mahapatra and Sanjay Swain, CureBay operates over 250 technology-enabled clinics across seven states. The company will use the funds to expand its operations, strengthen its healthcare delivery network and develop its technology and AI capabilities, including tools for patient screening, health insights and clinical decision-making. CureBay says it has served over 17 lakh patients and conducts more than 400 health camps every month.
Other news
Uroionpro Transit, Mastercard partner to simplify transit payments
Uroionpro Transit is expanding its partnership with Mastercard to help public transport agencies and government authorities across North America modernise transit payment systems and improve passenger experience. The collaboration focuses on making contactless payment solutions easier to assess, procure and deploy across public transportation networks.
The partnership will support transit agencies through practical procurement frameworks, repeatable implementation methods and deployment models that can be adapted to local operational and policy requirements. The aim is to reduce the complexity of introducing contactless payments while enabling secure, seamless and convenient transactions for passengers.
Maasi launches on-demand nanny platform in Bengaluru
Maasi, a childcare platform offering trained, background-verified nannies on demand and through subscription plans, has launched in Bengaluru. During its invite-only beta, the platform served 1,200 families and built a waitlist of over 5,000 parents. Instant Nanny visits start at Rs 660, while subscription plans begin at Rs 15,660 a month.
Founded by Gargi Pandey, Aashu Manchali and Reshov Roy, Maasi offers short-notice childcare and part-time, full-time, live-in, governess and postpartum care. The startup aims to address the shortage of reliable childcare, which can force parents, particularly women, to step away from their careers. Its caregivers undergo background verification and training, with replacement support if a caregiver leaves
Pine Labs partners WEBXPAY to enable UPI payments in Sri Lanka
Pine Labs has partnered with Sri Lankan payment aggregator WEBXPAY to enable Indian payment methods across its merchant network in Sri Lanka. The collaboration is the country's first Payment Aggregator-to-Payment Aggregator partnership under India’s RBI-authorised PA-CB framework.
Through the partnership, merchants can accept UPI, UPI AutoPay, cards from major Indian issuers, net banking across more than 100 banks, EMI conversions and Credit on UPI. The solution offers T+1 settlement and integrates with existing merchant systems, enabling Indian travellers to pay in Sri Lanka using familiar methods.
Vultr announces Chennai cloud data centre region with 20 MW AI supercluster
Cloud infrastructure provider Vultr has announced Chennai as its 34th global cloud data centre region, featuring an AI supercluster powered by AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs, starting at 20 MW. The facility aims to give Indian enterprises and developers access to high-performance computing infrastructure closer to where they build and deploy AI applications.
Vultr plans to expand the supercluster in 2027 with next-generation AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs and AMD Helios rack-scale technology. The company said the infrastructure will help enterprises scale AI projects from pilots to production while offering greater control over workloads through an open software foundation.