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Separate ELEVATE track for Beyond Bengaluru startups welcomed

Unicorn in the USA: Indians aren't stealing American jobs, they're building entire HR depts

Immigrants are driving America's innovation, founding 59% of billion-dollar startups, known as unicorns. People of Indian origin lead this trend, establishing 96 such companies. These ventures employ thousands and contribute trillions to the U.S. economy, challenging narratives of immigrants harming the job market. International students also play a crucial role in this entrepreneurial surge.

India leads among immigrant founders of US billion-dollar startups

3rd cohort of AIC T-Hub SpaceTech accelerator Orbit takes off with 13 startups

Zelensky Pushes For AI And Drone Collaboration With American Defence Startups

Zelenskyy noted that American technology firms possess AI innovations, while Ukraine has gained knowledge from years of combat operations.

Kia India, RTIH to set up advanced prototyping centre in Amaravati

Facility to support startups, innovators and entrepreneurs with product development, testing and manufacturing infrastructure

Estonian startups keen to partner India, tap into its huge market

Latitude59, an influential startup and technology conference that takes place here annually, is also keen on hosting a networking event in India next year under its aegis

Zepto shares crash 30% in unlisted market despite Sebi nod for IPO. What's cooking?

The unlisted shares of Zepto Limited have fallen nearly 30% over the past month despite the company securing regulatory approval for its IPO, highlighting growing caution among investors amid volatile market conditions.Zepto's shares, which were changing hands at around Rs 52 in the unlisted market a month ago, have dropped to about Rs 40, according to dealers tracking pre-IPO transactions.The decline comes even as the quick commerce startup recently received approval from Sebi to launch its much-awaited public issue. The company had taken the confidential route to file the DRHP but may soon file its papers publicly in June, according to Bloomberg.Analysts said the fall reflects weakness in the unlisted market and a broader reassessment of valuations rather than any company-specific development. The company is being valued at around Rs 38,000 crore in the dealer market.Several companies that had planned public offerings this year have either delayed listings or adopted a wait-and-watch approach because of volatility in equity markets, geopolitical tensions and uncertainty around investor demand.The benchmark Nifty has remained under pressure for much of 2026, while foreign institutional investors have continued to remain cautious on Indian equities amid concerns over crude oil prices, global growth and the earnings outlook.The weakness in the secondary market for pre-IPO shares has also affected several startup names, with investors becoming more selective on valuations after a strong rally in the segment over the past two years.Zepto is preparing for a public market debut that could raise around $1.3 billion, or roughly Rs 11,000-12,000 crore, making it one of the largest internet IPOs since the listing of Swiggy.If the issue proceeds as planned, Zepto could become the youngest venture-backed Indian startup to enter public markets, just four years after its founding.The proposed offering is expected to comprise a substantial fresh issue of around Rs 11,000 crore along with an offer-for-sale component by existing investors.The IPO assumes significance because it comes amid intensifying competition in India's fast-growing quick commerce sector.Zepto competes with Blinkit, owned by Eternal, as well as Swiggy Instamart, Flipkart Minutes and Amazon Now.The listing is also expected to strengthen the company's balance sheet at a time when the quick commerce industry continues to spend aggressively on expansion, dark stores and customer acquisition.As of late last year, Zepto had around Rs 7,000 crore in cash, significantly lower than the roughly Rs 17,000-18,000 crore cash reserves reported by listed rivals Eternal and Swiggy.The company raised $450 million in October last year at a valuation of $7 billion. Following the fundraise, it accelerated customer acquisition efforts through higher discounts and promotional campaigns as competition intensified across major cities.Zepto had also completed its domicile shift from Singapore to India, a move increasingly adopted by venture-backed startups preparing for domestic listings.The company has appointed a consortium of investment bankers including Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Axis Capital, JM Financial, IIFL Securities and Motilal Oswal Financial Services to manage the public issue. The IPO is expected to hit the market in the July-September quarter of 2026.While the recent decline in the unlisted share price may reflect near-term market caution, investors will closely watch the final valuation and broader market conditions when Zepto eventually launches what is expected to be one of the year's most closely watched public offerings.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

Molecule glue drugs shake up cancer care

One of the biggest advances in pancreatic cancer in decades came out of a crazy idea born in a Harvard University lab.Chemical biologist Gregory Verdine believed you could fight disease-causing proteins hidden inside cells by chemically gluing them to something else in the body and smothering them."Everybody told us this is crazy, that it would never work," he recalls.Revolution Medicines, which bought one of Verdine's companies in 2018, recently announced that one of its drugs doubled the typical survival time for patients with aggressive forms of the disease, from 6.7 months to 13.2 months. The full results from the company's final-stage trial are expected to be the star of the show at the annual confab of cancer doctors in Chicago this weekend.Spurred by the success of RevMed, numerous companies are now racing to develop similar drugs, dubbed "molecular glues", which can be used to treat a variety of ailments. And investors and pharmaceutical companies with deep pockets are chasing after them, creating one of the hottest corners of dealmaking in the industry.Also read | India's out-of-pocket healthcare spending drops significantly, govt data showsIt's not unusual for exciting new drugs to spark surges in stock prices and dealmaking frenzy. But molecular glue is a particularly complicated science, and the startups pursuing technologies similar to RevMed are mostly in early stages of testing. Their medicines won't be ready for years, if ever.That hasn't stopped big drugmakers such as Novartis, Roche Holding and Eli Lilly from inking research pacts with glue developers that could pay out billions of dollars in milestones.The boom has been especially lucrative for Monte Rosa Therapeutics. Over the past three years, the Boston-based biotech firm has signed three agreements that could be worth over $10 billion to develop molecular glue drugs with both Novartis and Roche.The company, which trades under the stock ticker GLUE, has seen its shares surge nearly 400% over the past year. It's preparing to start mid-stage trials for multiple drugs by the end of this year."The run-up in the share price is justified based on what we've seen so far," says Robert Driscoll, an analyst at Wedbush. Gains are "due to the success of their drugs rather than kind of exuberance around the glue technology as a whole", he says.Science of GlueMolecular glues work in a fundamentally different way from other oral medicines. Most pills - like Prozac for depression or Lipitor for cholesterol - are tiny chemicals that squeeze into a pocket inside a much larger protein to gum up its functioning. But many proteins have few obvious pockets, including key cancer-causing proteins.In fact, about 80% of all proteins in the body are what scientists refer to as "undruggable", meaning they can't be targeted with traditional drug technologies.RevMed's daraxonrasib cleverly circumvents this problem by acting as a molecular stickum. Once inside the body it binds to a healthy protein on one side and then draws in the bad protein to stick to the other side. The healthy protein helps block the bad protein and turn off its signalling.Competitors Line UpMultiple companies are chasing RevMed's lead in pancreatic cancer despite the long odds. San Diego-based Erasca is in early stages of testing a drug it says is more potent than daraxonrasib. Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma has begun final-stage trials of a degrader that may help a subset of pancreatic and lung cancer patients.Molecular glues are also being developed as alternatives to injectable drugs used to treat autoimmune and skin disorders. Shares of Kymera Therapeutics have soared more than 180% in the past year thanks to promising early trial results. The company is developing a once-daily pill it hopes will one day compete with Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals' Dupixent, one of the world's bestselling drugs."The technology allows you to go after things that would have been almost impossible" to do previously with pills, says Nello Mainolfi, Kymera's founder and CEO.With few effective options for pancreatic cancer, analysts expect RevMed's daraxonrasib to become an enormous bestseller for the company.Prospects for daraxonrasib and speculation about a potential takeout deal have inflated RevMed's market cap to nearly $33 billion. That's a lofty figure for a drugmaker with no approved medicines.The company is preparing to file for US approval soon, and the FDA has promised to give the drug an ultrafast review. It's projected to reach $7 billion in sales a year by 2032, according to the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

MSME Growth Summit 2026: A.P. govt. forges key tie-ups to boost MSMEs, startups

Stone laid for 38 MSME parks; Rural Smart Village Centres to function as incubation and innovation centres for rural entrepreneurs; ₹20-crore seed fund programme announced for deep-tech startups