Online gaming platform Zupee is laying off around 200 employees, equivalent to about 40% of its workforce, as part of its restructuring efforts. In September last year, the startup laid off around 170 employees. The layoffs come after the government banned online real-money games under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act.

AI startup Perplexity has signed a deal with Microsoft to use its Azure cloud service, Bloomberg reported. The multi-year agreement, valued at $750 million (around ₹6,900 crore), will allow Perplexity to deploy AI models through Microsoft's Foundry service, including those made by OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. Perplexity's main cloud provider is Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Bengaluru-based health-tech startup Biopeak has raised $2.7 million in a follow-on funding round led by NKSquared, the investment arm of Nikhil Kamath. Founded by Rishi Pardal and Shiva Subramanian, the company plans to expand clinics, strengthen diagnostics, and advance AI-driven health tools as it scales its personalised longevity-focused healthcare model in India.

SaaS unicorn Icertis co-founder Samir Bodas has passed away at 61 after a prolonged battle with cancer. A pioneer of the global SaaS ecosystem, he helped build Icertis into a leading contract lifecycle management platform serving Fortune 100 companies. His leadership, vision, and mentorship left a lasting impact on India’s startup and technology landscape.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is considering a potential merger with EV maker Tesla, according to a Bloomberg report. The space venture could alternatively also merge with xAI, which would bring Starlink satellites, the X social media platform and Grok AI chatbot under one entity. The discussions come ahead of SpaceX's planned IPO for later this year.

Considering the retirement age to be 60, a person aged 40 should invest ₹55,000 in a monthly SIP for 20 years at 12% expected rate of return to build a retirement corpus of ₹5 crore, NDTV Profit reported. To build a retirement corpus of ₹6 crore, a person would need to invest ₹65,000 monthly in SIP at 12% return.

Economic Survey 2025-2026 warned of a 10-20% chance of a 2008‑like global financial crisis in 2026. The 2008 crisis was triggered by US housing market collapse and investment bank Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy. US reportedly lost around 7.5 million jobs, while Indian domestic equity market fell over 60%. The crisis reportedly wiped out almost $8 trillion in household stock market wealth.

Berlin-based health-tech startup Recare has raised €37 million in a major funding round led by global assurance firm DNV, with CIBC Innovation Banking and existing investors also participating. The company will expand its AI-driven platform across Europe, aiming to streamline hospital workflows, reduce administrative burdens, and improve care coordination.

Global markets faced high volatility on Thursday as multiple asset classes saw their value dip intraday. While US' Nasdaq saw its value dip by over 2.6%, Germany's DAX index fell 2.07%, and Spain's IBEX 35 fell 1.54% from its intraday high. Meanwhile, gold and silver prices fell 8% and over 12%, respectively, as bitcoin dipped 7%, or ₹5.76 lakh.

Gorilla Technology drew strong interest after revealing a contracted backlog of over $100 million for 2026 and a qualified pipeline exceeding $10 billion. Northland Capital raised its price target, citing surging global demand for AI data centers, while retail sentiment stayed bullish amid high trading chatter.