Скачать или смотреть Are Unacademy’s Founders Leaving the Company? - Indian Startup News 263

Welcome to the Backstage with Millionaires weekly Indian startup news show, hosted by Caleb Friesen. This week, Unacademy co-founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini may reportedly step away from the company, Drools becomes India’s fourth unicorn of 2025, Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha accuses a rival of running a smear campaign, India’s biggest AI model Sarvam-M trends on Hugging Face, the Government of India cracks down on dark patterns in ecommerce, and Indian startups raise $181.5 million.

0:00 Unacademy Founders Leaving Unacademy?
2:42 Drools Is India’s Fourth Unicorn of 2025
4:09 Sarvam-M Trending on Hugging Face
6:00 Aadit Palicha Accuses Competition of Smear Campaign
7:44 Government of India Cracks Down on E-commerce Dark Patterns
9:16 Quick News Items
9:48 Indian Startup Funding News

Unacademy Founders Leaving Unacademy?

Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini, co-founders of Unacademy, are reportedly stepping away from Unacademy, although there’s been no official confirmation. Reports suggest Sumit Jain, a board member who joined after Unacademy acquired his startup Graphy, will become the new CEO of Unacademy. Sources indicate Gaurav Munjal was never aligned with Unacademy’s offline coaching center direction and has shifted focus to AirLearn, a language learning app under Unacademy’s U.S. entity. AirLearn is reportedly growing fast, with 70,000 daily active users and a $2 million ARR, making it the fastest-growing product under Unacademy.

Drools Is India’s Fourth Unicorn of 2025

Pet food brand Drools has become India’s fourth unicorn of 2025, joining Netradyne, Juspay, and Porter. Drools hit a $1B valuation after Nestlé SA acquired a minority stake. Founded by Fahim Sultan in 2010, Drools closed FY24 with ₹715 crore in revenue. The company’s growth reflects the expansion of India’s pet care market, which had only ₹800 crore in value a decade ago. Drools operates brands like Pure Pet, Meat Up, Canine Creek, and Kitty Yam, with over 650 SKUs sold in 22 countries and 40,000+ retail outlets.

Sarvam-M Trending on Hugging Face

India’s multilingual AI model Sarvam-M is now trending on Hugging Face with 2,300+ downloads, surpassing a Korean model cited in a viral critique by Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures. Sridhar Vembu of Zoho defended Sarvam-M, emphasizing long-term impact. Built on Mistral Small’s 24B parameter base, Sarvam-M is fine-tuned for Indian languages, math, and programming. The model is outperforming larger models on key benchmarks and represents a push toward sovereign AI. Sarvam-M’s technical strengths include supervised fine-tuning, reward engineering, and inference optimization.

Aadit Palicha Accuses Competition of Smear Campaign

Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha claims a rival CFO is orchestrating a smear campaign. In a LinkedIn post, Aadit Palicha alleged false investor calls, bot-driven social media narratives, and misinformation. He linked these actions to Zepto’s recent financial gains: gross order value rose from ₹750 crore in May 2024 to ₹2,400 crore in May 2025, with 20% EBITDA improvement and 65% lower cash burn. Despite Zepto Cafe shutdowns and delivery protests, Aadit Palicha said Zepto has ₹7,400 crore in net cash, and is aggressively expanding store launches ahead of a public listing.

Government of India Cracks Down on E-commerce Dark Patterns

The Government of India has warned ecommerce firms like Zepto, Zomato, Blinkit, and Paytm to eliminate dark patterns—like sneaky add-ons and misleading urgency. Consumer Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi urged companies to self-regulate or face intervention. 23 firms have agreed to comply. Users have complained online about hidden fees and default additions, particularly on apps like Zepto and Blinkit. Ride-hailing services like Uber, Ola, and Rapido are also under scrutiny. Over 400 notices have already been issued by the government for unfair practices.

Quick News Items

Ola Electric has dropped to third place in India’s electric two-wheeler market, behind TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto. CRED now lets users sell their cars through a partnership with CARS24 and Spinny, offering instant valuation and fast payments.

Indian Startup Funding News

Indian startups raised $181.5M this week. Citycart, a Gurugram-based value fashion retailer, raised $63M in Series B. Mumbai’s Snabbit, offering home services, raised $19M. Fashion delivery startup Slikk raised $10M. Vision AI company Frinks AI raised $10M. Construction tech platform Contineu raised $1.2M, and spacetech firm Orbitt Space raised $1M for fuel-free satellite propulsion in Ultra Low Earth Orbit.

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