Sam Altman-backed autonomous vehicle startup Glydways seeks to raise $250 million to reach a valuation of over $1 billion. It plans to make podlike vehicles that provide on-demand rides, running on dedicated two-meter-wide expressways to offer taxi-like service, avoiding congestion. The firm recently closed a $170-million funding round from investors like Suzuki Motor Corp and Khosla Ventures.

Indian-Australian entrepreneur Kunal Vankadara, whose three-year-old AI startup Haast is nearing a $100 million valuation, previously worked as a Policy Adviser with the Australian Government from July 2019 to February 2021. He then worked as an Associate at Strategy& for a year, before moving into consulting at Boston Consulting Group in May 2022. He then co-founded Haast in May 2023.

Chinese robotics startup Unitree showcased its H1 robot reaching a sprint speed of about 10 metres per second, a world record for a humanoid robot. This was near the average speed of Usain Bolt’s 100-metre world record, which was 10.44 metres per second. The robot had a combined thigh and calf length of 80 centimetres and weighed about 62 kgs.

Ex-Neuralink President Max Hodak's startup, Science Corporation, is preparing for US trials of its first neuron sensor that will be placed in the human brain. The device contains 520 electrodes for detecting neural activity without penetrating brain tissue. The startup has partnered with Yale's Dr Murat Gunel, who believes the device could help treat conditions like Parkinson's disease eventually.

The Centre launched the Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0 with a corpus of ₹10,000 crore to boost capital flow into the country’s startup ecosystem. Investments under the scheme will focus on supporting deep-tech, early-stage and manufacturing startups, as per a DPIIT notification. The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) will be the implementing agency of the scheme.

India's private space startup Agnikul Cosmos completed a 25.55-second-long repeatability test of its Agnite engine. Sharing a video of the test, Agnikul said, "We are getting...so close to flying these engines on our operational launch vehicles." Measuring about one metre in length, Agnite is the world's largest single-piece 3D-printed booster engine.

US President Donald Trump warned he could pull back from the UK trade deal that currently limits the impact of American tariffs to 10%. "We gave them a good trade deal, better than I had to, which can always be changed," he said. This comes after UK PM Keir Starmer said, "It's not our war, we'll stay out of it."

India produces nearly 45% of the world's mangoes but exports only about 1% due to high domestic demand, Firstpost reported. India's domestic mango market is worth $32.3 billion and has been growing 7% every year since 2012. "The rest of the world may be fighting over mango imports, but India is basically saying, 'sorry we ate them'," the report added.

Footwear brand Allbirds has turned into an AI firm overnight as it announced a pivot into becoming an AI-native cloud solutions provider. Allbirds said it'll use the $50-million convertible financing it recently raised to change its core product from sustainable footwear made with wool and eucalyptus to AI infrastructure. Allbirds shares jumped 652% within hours after the announcement.

Ex-Tata Trusts trustee Mehli Mistry renewed the dispute between him and late industrialist Ratan Tata's half-brother Noel Tata by filing a complaint with Maharashtra Charity Commissioner, Moneycontrol reported. He claimed Noel, along with trustees Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh, violated Tata Trusts' rules in a "mala fide and illegal action". Board of Trustees is "illegally constituted", he said.