Startup Spotlights

India’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act (PROGA) 2025 effectively banned real-money gaming, wiping out more than 95% of Dream Sports’ revenue overnight . Profits vanished. The core business model that had built a unicorn was no longer viable.

But rather than fold, Dream Sports pivoted. In December 2025, the company restructured itself into eight independent business units, shifting into what CEO Harsh Jain described as “startup mode” . The portfolio now spans sports streaming (FanCode), sports travel (DreamSetGo), mobile gaming (Dream Cricket), AI athlete intelligence (Dream Play), open-source initiatives (Dream Horizon), philanthropy (Dream Sports Foundation), and crucially, financial services .

The company unveiled a suite of new features designed to reduce “everyday shopping friction” and usher in what it calls “behaviour-led commerce” . The centerpiece of this update is a ‘Pay Later’ facility offering interest-free credit, alongside ‘Real Lens’ —a tool providing real-time images of fresh produce—and an ‘Add After Checkout’ function that lets customers add forgotten items to an existing order .

Deep-tech innovation in India has long faced a critical bottleneck: the chasm between groundbreaking research in academic labs and scalable, market-ready solutions. This gap—often called the “valley of death”—has been where many promising ideas go to languish, unable to secure the funding, mentorship, and industry partnerships needed to survive commercialization.

On March 21 and 22, 2026, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay will transform into the epicenter of India’s deep-tech ambitions. The institute is set to host the Bharat Innovates 2026 Deep-Tech Pre-Summit, a landmark two-day event that will bring together 137 of the most promising deep-tech startups from across the country, along with investors, policymakers, and academic leaders .

This is not just another startup event. It is the culmination of a rigorous, multi-stage national selection process that began with over 3,000 applications, narrowed down through theme-specific bootcamps and a National Basecamp at IIT Gandhinagar . The startups chosen represent the very best of India’s research-backed innovation, spanning 13 critical technology themes .

Building a semiconductor fabrication plant, developing a new cancer therapy, or launching a rocket into space takes time—often a decade or more. The traditional 10-year startup recognition window meant that these ventures would “age out” of crucial government benefits just as they were nearing commercialization.

That has now changed.

In a landmark move announced via a DPIIT gazette notification on February 4, 2026, the Government of India has introduced a dedicated ‘Deep Tech Startup’ category under the Startup India initiative . The new framework extends the eligibility period for deep-tech startups to 20 years and raises the turnover cap to ₹300 crore .

In a startup ecosystem often defined by headlines about mega-rounds and unicorn valuations, it’s the steady drumbeat of early-stage innovation that truly builds the future. The past week offered a perfect illustration of this truth, with three distinct startups from three very different sectors announcing fresh capital infusions.

From a deep-tech company using light to transmit data, to a sustainable textile innovator turning agricultural waste into fabric, to a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand redefining pet nutrition, the diversity of ideas finding investor backing is a powerful signal of the ecosystem’s maturity and resilience.

In the annals of Indian startup history, 2026 may well be remembered as the year of the “great homecoming.” After years of incorporating in friendlier offshore jurisdictions, a wave of Indian unicorns is charting a course back to their homeland.

Leading this charge is Udaan, the B2B e-commerce giant founded by former Flipkart executives.

In a significant development, Udaan is preparing to initiate the process to move its domicile from Singapore back to India in the coming weeks . This “reverse flip” is a critical precursor to its long-anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO), which the company now aims to launch within the next 9 to 18 months .

On a recent Friday evening, the headquarters of Razorpay in Bengaluru’s bustling Koramangala suburb looked like a scene from a different kind of startup story. There were no pitches about UPI, no discussions about payment gateways, no fintech jargon. Instead, around 150 founders, developers, and innovators had gathered for a singular purpose: to talk about OpenClaw .