Startup news and updates: daily roundup (October 21, 2026)

Eternal, the parent company of Zomato and Blinkit, reported a strong Q2 net profit of Rs 125 crore, a 92% increase year-on-year, while revenue grew 78% to Rs 24,138 crore. However, the company missed analysts' estimates of Rs 250 crore. Jio Platforms' IPO was oversubscribed in the qualified institutional buyers category within two hours of opening, signaling strong demand.

Actor Prakash Belawadi spoke at TechSparks 2026 on AI's impact on creativity and jobs, urging people to reconnect with their inner artist. AI startup Vectorial raised $3 million in funding led by SenseAI Ventures, with modelled consumer responses being 30% more accurate than general-purpose large language models. Bengaluru-based travel platform Onto launched its services with a Price Drop Refund feature, raising $1 million in pre-seed funding.

Raaho, a freight-tech platform, secured an investment from Japan-based Enrission India Capital to expand to 25 cities and deeper AI use in load matching. Autonomous aircraft startup LogiXair received funding from GrowthCap Ventures to develop short-haul cargo VTOL aircraft. Cloud infrastructure provider Vultr plans to deploy a 20 MW AMD AI supercluster in Chennai, aiming to support AI labs and enterprise workloads.