Indian Startup News April 6, 2026 | Funding & Women in Business

YourStory presents the daily news roundup from the Indian startup ecosystem and beyond, highlighting the latest developments across various sectors.

Across India, women entrepreneurs are redefining success by focusing on community impact. Their startups are solving for credit access, creating market linkages, ensuring community participation, and generating income opportunities, especially for women.

Spacetech startup SatLeo Labs has raised $2.2 million in a seed round led by Unicorn India Ventures, with participation from existing investors Merak Ventures, Java Capital, IIMA-CIIE, and Manish Gandhi. SatLeo plans to use the funds to advance its thermal satellite mission and AI platform for thermal intelligence applications. The company aims to advance its space-based thermal intelligence capabilities through satellite launch readiness, commercial expansion, and technology scaling over the next 12 months.

Wealth management and private equity platform ILIOS 72 has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round, bringing the company’s valuation to about $2 million. The round saw participation from family offices based out of Jaipur and Mumbai. The company’s assets under management have crossed Rs 200 crore and it will now focus on geographic expansion beyond metros, strengthening its presence in Jaipur and Kanpur, and targeting high-potential Tier II markets, while also investing in strengthening its platform capabilities and research depth.

AI-driven food and beverage intelligence platform Vacati has raised Rs 10 lakh in angel funding and plans to use the capital to develop domain-specific large language models tailored for hospitality, food, and beverage applications, along with the deployment of its consumer-facing application. A portion of the capital will also be used to train its domain-specific large language model.

Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police to provide scholarships and academic support to personnel and their families. The five-year initiative will offer structured coaching, financial aid, and talent-based exams such as ANTHE to improve access to competitive exam preparation. The programme covers serving and retired personnel, gallantry awardees, disabled members, and families of martyrs, with fee waivers of up to 100% in select cases, and includes mentoring and career counselling support.

Veranda Learning has launched the Veranda Learning Scholarship Kind Circle, a community-driven initiative aimed at supporting chartered accountancy aspirants enrolled at J.K. Shah Classes. Powered by Buddy4Study, the programme offers merit-cum-means scholarships covering coaching fees, exam and registration costs, study materials, and related academic expenses, initially focusing on students pursuing CA Foundation, Intermediate, and Final levels. The initiative also enables Veranda’s wider ecosystem to contribute funds, nominate students, and mentor scholars, with real-time tracking of donations and fund disbursement.

Edited by Swetha Kannan.