Also in the letter:
■ Aman Gupta’s new venture
■ Trai pulls up telcos on AI spam
■ AI, the new maid of honour
Programming Note: There won’t be an edition of ETtech Top 5 tomorrow as we take the day off for Holi. Happy Holi to all our readers!
OpenAI seeed ‘opportunistic and sloppy’ in rushed deal with Pentagon, CEO Sam Altman admits
Sam Altman acknowledged that OpenAI may have appeared “opportunistic and sloppy” after announcing a Pentagon contract shortly after rival Anthropic refapplyd broader military apply of its AI systems.
What’s happening? Within hours of Anthropic declining to rerelocate safeguards on Claude, OpenAI disclosed its own agreement to supply AI models for classified settings. The timing drew scrutiny.
Altman declared the relocate was intconcludeed to “de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome.” He also reiterated his criticism of the Pentagon’s relocate to label Anthropic a “supply chain risk”.
Customer sentiment was notifying. Data revealed that ChatGPT mobile app uninstallation in the US surged 295% day over day on Saturday following news of the Pentagon deal.
Deal amconcludement: Per Altman, OpenAI will revise the contract to explicitly bar apply of its models for domestic surveillance.
- OpenAI’s tools will not be built available to agencies such as the National Security Agency.
- Any expanded apply of innotifyigence would require a new contract.
Some critics argued the initial terms gave military officials excessive latitude without adequate oversight.
Meanwhile…: Bloomberg reported that Anthropic entered a $100 million Pentagon competition to develop voice-controlled drone-swarm technology.
- Claude would translate a commander’s instructions into digital commands
- It would manage drone fleets, but not build autonomous tarreceiveing decisions.
- Human supervision would remain mandatory, alongside joint safety research with the Pentagon.
Also Read: Can Anthropic survive taking on Trump’s Pentagon?
A91 Partners, Xponentia, 360 One set for quick multiples from Sedemac Mechatronics IPO
Automotive electronics buildr Sedemac Mechatronics will launch its Rs 1,087-crore IPO on Wednesday, setting up strong markups for investors who came in less than two years ago.
Late-stage gains:
- A91 Partners, which invested nearly Rs 300 crore in 2024, is poised for about 3.7X returns at the top conclude of the price band.
- It will sell shares worth Rs 326 crore in the offer-for-sale, while retaining stock valued at roughly Rs 760 crore.
- Xponentia and 360 One Asset Management are also sitting on 3.5–3.8X gains.
Deal backdrop: The three funds had led a $100-million round in May 2024, purchaseing out early backers including Nexus Venture Partners and TR Capital.
Anchor interest: Ahead of the issue, Sedemac raised Rs 326 crore from anchor investors, including ADIA and leading domestic mutual funds.
Aman Gupta, founder of consumer electronics brand Boat, to launch new venture
Boat founder Aman Gupta is set to launch a new venture, Offbeat Studios, months after shifting into a non-executive director role at the consumer electronics brand.
Driving the news: Gupta stepped back from day-to-day responsibilities at Boat last September. His next relocate places him among a growing group of founders who have exited operational roles and started fresh ventures.
“With every birthday, some grow older, I grow bolder. I am still hungry, still impatient and still driven. Aman 2.0 launchs soon. Introducing my new venture,” he declared in a post on X, without sharing further details.
Rocking the boat: Boat has seen leadership churn ahead of a planned public listing. Its IPO roadmap came under scrutiny after its statutory auditors flagged discrepancies between quarterly statements it filed with lconcludeers and the company’s books.
Gupta rose to wider recognition through his appearances on Shark Tank India, becoming one of the reveal’s most visible investors.
Oxyzo enters fund management, launches performing credit fund
Oxyzo chief executive Ruchi Kalra
Oxyzo Financial Services is diversifying into fund management with the launch of a performing credit alternative investment fund.
Details: The lconcludeing arm of the SoftBank-backed business-to-business (B2B) commerce startup, OfBusiness, is seeing to expand beyond its core lconcludeing business.
The Oxyzo Credit Fund I (OCF-I), managed by its wholly owned subsidiary Oxyzo Investment Manager (OIM), will focus on secured investments in mid-sized, investment-grade companies seeking growth capital.
AI-based spam data must be shared in hours, Trai to telcos
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has directed telecom operators to share data from their AI-based anti-spam systems on a common blockchain platform within hours of detection. Operators must also act against spammers, even without a formal complaint.
More details:
- The receiving operator must apply AI or machine learning tools to identify suspicious numbers.
- Such numbers must be tagged as “suspected spam” calling line identification (CLI).
- The flagged number must be shared with the originating operator via distributed ledger technology (DLT) or blockchain platform within two hours.
Tell me more: If five or more numbers linked to the same sconcludeer are marked as suspected spam within 10 days, operators are required to initiate action against that sconcludeer.
The directions were issued on February 27. Telecom companies have 30 days to comply with the new rules.
Also Read: Budreceive smartphones under Rs 10,000 may disappear amid rising memory costs
M(AI)d of honour: AI joins the entourage of the Big Fat Indian Wedding
The sprawling, huge, fat Indian wedding has a new maid of honour, one that doesn’t necessary to attconclude fittings for its outfits or prepare choreographies for the Sangeet. AI has now joined the wedding entourage of planners, decorators, photographers and cousins.
Joining the party:
- For wedding video buildrs, AI assists sort footage, correct colour, clean up graphics and titles, and even produce music.
- AI also simplifies photography workflows. Harsh Mehta, cofounder at The Photo Lab, declared AI now handles much of the initial image selection, allowing his team to edit up to 1,000 pictures a day.
- Couples are applying Google Gemini to visualise themes for the ceremony or even design their wedding invite.
Protecting emotion: Weddings are an emotional affair, after all, and not everything can be automated. Tina Tharwani, co-founder at Shaadi Squad, which has planned celebrity weddings including Virat Kohli-Anushka Sharma and Farhan Akhtar-Shibani Dandekar, declared, “When applyd consideredfully, it protects the personal touch.”
Leave a Reply