D2C Brand EDT Launches Recipe Ramsay: WhatsApp-Powered AI for Smarter Kitchens

• WhatsApp Bot link - whatsapp.edtworld.com - Users can simply send “Hi” or “Recipe” to start interacting with the bot.

EDT, the new-generation consumer appliances brand reimagining everyday devices for modern homes, today announced the launch of , “Recipe Ramsay” in partnership with SagePilot AI. This is a first-of-its-kind AI-powered Kitchen OS built specifically for LUMA, its intelligent PureGlass Air Fryer with NutriRetainTM Edge. With this launch, EDT becomes one of the first companies to tightly integrate a conversational AI recipe agent directly with an intelligent kitchen appliance, bridging thoughtful hardware with practical, everyday AI.

Built on WhatsApp, Recipe Ramsay addresses a core behavioural insight: the friction in cooking isn’t execution, it’s decision-making. In over 500 consumer interviews across demographics and cities, EDT found that nearly 95% of respondents struggled not just with cooking itself, but with also deciding what to cook each day. Variables such as available ingredients, time, dietary preferences, calorie or protein goals, spice levels, and serving size collectively create daily decision fatigue.

Commenting on the launch, Naiyya Saggi, Co-Founder & CEO, EDT, said, “The next frontier of AI is Physical AI, intelligence embedded directly into the products people use every day. At EDT, the long term vision is to build stable, integrated systems where hardware and AI are conceived together to improve daily use outcomes. Recipe Ramsay is an early expression of that vision. It’s not a generic AI layered onto an appliance, but a tightly integrated intelligence layer that enhances a user’s experience with LUMA’s core performance while reducing everyday cognitive load. By creating an AI-enabled assistive ecosystem around LUMA’s hardware, and delivering it through a familiar interface like WhatsApp, we’re moving beyond novelty toward infrastructure, where technology works quietly and meaningfully inside the home.”

Recipe Ramsay streamlines this complexity into a single assistive, conversational flow. Users input what they have, how much time they have, and their dietary or health preferences or goals. The AI agent responds with a LUMA-optimised recipe, complete with calibrated temperature, time, and cooking mode settings. If ingredients are missing, it enables direct comparison across quick-commerce platforms, compressing the gap between intent and action. By choosing WhatsApp over a standalone app, EDT removes friction points such as downloads, onboarding, and platform switching.

Crucially, this is not a generic AI overlay. The result is an early expression of an hardware augmented by AI experience that reduces cognitive load, improves cooking outcomes, and expands the functional value of the appliance itself.

The launch of Recipe Ramsay reflects EDT’s broader philosophy of integrating meaningful, human-centric technology into everyday devices. The company, which recently announced its $1.4 million pre-seed fundraise led by Sauce VC along with participation from marquee founders and industry leaders, is building a portfolio of contemporary, intelligent home appliances designed around real human behaviour. With LUMA and now the LUMA Recipe Bot, EDT continues to advance its mission of making the everyday extraordinary.

ThunderPlus Raises ₹3 Crore Debt from SBI to Scale EV Charging Infrastructure

• Deploying capital with precision to accelerate high-demand expansion and maximize utilization-driven returns.

ThunderPlus, one of India’s fastest-growing EV charging infrastructure companies, has secured ₹3 Crore in structured institutional debt funding from the State Bank of India under the Government of India’s CGTMSE framework. With this milestone, ThunderPlus becomes the first profitable Charge Point Operator (CPO) in India to receive institutional bank debt, a strong validation of a model built on financial discipline, operational efficiency, and utilization-led growth.

 

Founded in January 2024, ThunderPlus adopted a differentiated expansion strategy in a sector often characterized by high capital burn. Instead of prioritizing rapid footprint growth, the company focused on demand density, corridor connectivity, and strong unit economics. This disciplined approach enabled ThunderPlus to close FY24–25 with ₹10+ Crore in revenue and positive EBITDA, a rare achievement in India’s EV charging landscape. The company has since surpassed its first-year performance and is on track to close ₹16 Crore in revenue by March 2026, reflecting a sustained 60% growth trajectory while maintaining profitability.

The ₹3 Crore SBI facility followed comprehensive institutional due diligence, including detailed financial scrutiny, operational assessment, cash-flow validation, and long-term business model evaluation. The approval signals increasing institutional confidence that EV charging infrastructure, when built with governance and execution rigour, can qualify as a bankable and scalable infrastructure asset class.

It is very inspiring to witness the journey of ThunderPlus. What makes it even more remarkable is that this organization is based right here in Hyderabad and is fundamentally very strong. SBI is very proud to support ThunderPlus in its growth, and we look forward to actively participating in and contributing to this incredible growth story even more — Srinivasu Pamu, Asst General Manager, Commercial Branch Secunderabad.

This is not just funding it is institutional validation. From day one, we focused on building a charging network rooted in profitability, operational efficiency, and responsible capital deployment. In a sector often perceived as capital-heavy and burn-driven, we chose disciplined growth supported by strong utilization and governance standards. We thank all our customers, partners & stakeholders for trusting us. This is just the beginning as we are continuing our conversations with other PEs and VC firms. The depth of due diligence undertaken by SBI reinforces our confidence in our systems, financial discipline, and long-term execution capability. We are building an infrastructure business designed to endure.” — Rajeev YSR, Executive Director & CEO, ThunderPlus.

The funds will be deployed toward:

• Expanding charging infrastructure along high-demand corridors
• Increasing ultra-fast charging capacity
• Optimizing working capital cycles
• Strengthening strategic ecosystem partnerships

ThunderPlus will continue to follow its measured expansion philosophy, ensuring each deployed asset enhances utilization and unit-level profitability before scaling further.

Beyond financial performance, ThunderPlus is also driving measurable environmental impact:

• Dispenses ~16,000 units of clean energy daily
• Enables nearly 60 million green kilometres annually
• Offsets ~10,000 metric tonnes of CO₂ each year
• Equivalent to planting ~300,000 trees

With institutional backing now secured and consistent profitability demonstrated, ThunderPlus stands at the forefront of India’s evolving EV infrastructure ecosystem setting a new benchmark for bankability, governance, and sustainable growth.

IFC Backs Mozark’s $40M Series B to Boost Inclusive Digital Infrastructure

• Backed by IFC, RMB Capitalworks and Kalaari Capital, Mozark enables digital experience equity across every touch point in the fast-evolving AI infrastructure.

Mozark, a digital experience testing and measurement company that measures real-world digital performance across devices, networks, and geographies without encroaching user privacy, today announced the close of its $40 million Series B funding round led by IFC and RMB Capitalworks, with continued participation from Kalaari Capital. This fresh infusion of capital will support Mozark’s global expansion and strategic acquisitions.

In today's increasingly borderless and digitally connected world, AI is accelerating the rollout and adoption of digital services across consumer, enterprise, and public sector platforms. From personalized applications to high-security enterprise networks and essential public services, reliable, high-quality digital experiences are now fundamental to economic participation. Yet real-world performance remains uneven across geographies, devices, networks, and infrastructure environments, widening the digital quality divide and limiting adoption, productivity and inclusion.

Mozark addresses this gap by enabling Digital Experience Equity regardless of location, device, or network. Its AI-assisted platform executes real-world testing of critical user journeys at scale, generating synthetic experience telemetry across the full AI-native stack, from applications and AI systems to underlying infrastructure. This enables organizations to identify performance gaps down to their root cause, including data centers, networks, hardware, and power infrastructure, enabling resolution before users are impacted. Designed for sovereignty-ready deployment, Mozark provides an independent and transparent measurement layer that improves reliability, accountability, and service outcomes.

This capability is particularly important in emerging markets, where digital performance directly impacts inclusive economic participation and delivery of essential societal services. When systems underperform, the impact extends beyond technical disruption to payments, healthcare, education, government services, and overall productivity. Mozark helps strengthen service reliability, accountability, and digital access at scale.

Mozark currently serves 50+ enterprise and government clients across 20+ countries, including regulators, telecom operators, financial institutions, and global digital-native organizations. Its deployments run concurrently on several thousand live devices, having already executed 25 million+ tests supporting benchmarking and user-experience assurance analytics at scale.

Leadership Quotes

AI is accelerating digital services everywhere, but experience quality remains disparate and unreliable...” — Kartik Raja & Fabien Renaudineau, Founders & Co-CEOs of Mozark.

While AI has revolutionized coding, testing remains constrained by physical infrastructure limitations...” — Chandra Ramamoorthy, Founder & CPO of Mozark.

Investor Perspectives

• Farid Fezoua, IFC: “Reliable digital infrastructure is critical to productivity, inclusion, and growth in emerging markets...”
• Robert Oudhof, RMB Capitalworks: “Mozark’s Agentic AI platform solves critical problems in App Testing and Observability globally...”
• Rajesh Raju, Kalaari Capital: “We have strong conviction in Mozark’s strategy and execution...”

Use of Proceeds

• Deepening real-world testing and measurement across native digital AI stack: apps, networks, and AI infrastructure to strengthen digital experience equity
• Accelerating expansion in priority markets, including the U.S. and the Global South

About Mozark

Mozark is a Singapore-headquartered digital experience testing and measurement company that helps enterprises, telecom operators, public-sector organizations, and regulators run real-world digital experience tests at scale. Learn more at www.mozark.ai.

About IFC

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused on private sector growth in emerging markets. More info at ifc.org.

About RMB Capitalworks

RMB Capitalworks partners with ambitious founders to build enduring businesses with flexible capital and strategic support. More info at rmbcapitalworks.com.

About Kalaari Capital

Kalaari is an early-stage, technology-focused venture capital firm based in Bengaluru, India. More info at kalaari.com.

US Federal Court Dismisses All Claims Against Binance in Anti - Terrorism Lawsuit

GVFL Leads ₹36 Crore Funding in Aditi Toys to Boost India’s Toy Manufacturing

GVFL, one of India’s pioneering venture capital firms, has led a Rs 36 crore funding round in Aditi Toys Pvt. Ltd. This reaffirms GVFL’s focus on backing high-potential manufacturing and consumer brands from India.

The round, which also drew participation from family and friends of the founders, will support Aditi Toys’ next phase of growth, focusing on product innovation and market expansion across India and key global markets.

Founded in 2015 by Subhash Zala and Arvind Zala in Rajkot, Aditi Toys has evolved from a small partnership firm into a fully integrated toy manufacturer with one of India’s largest toy facilities under a single roof. The company designs and manufactures plastic, die-cast, electric, STEM, silicone, wooden, and ride-on toys, with a strong focus on safety, innovation, and smart learning.

Aditi Toys currently serves over 150 distributors and 15,000 retailers, with presence across general trade, modern trade, e-commerce, and its own D2C channels under its flagship brand ‘Chanak – The Smartest Kid’.

“Aditi Toys has demonstrated strong execution in integrated manufacturing, quality, and distribution, and we believe the company is well-positioned to become a leading Indian toy brand in the premium segment while reducing the country’s dependence on imported toys,” said Mihir Joshi, managing director of GVFL.

The company founders, Subhash Zala and Arvind Zala, stated: “The investment by GVFL validates our ten-year commitment to developing world-class infrastructure and distribution. Now, we look forward to accelerating innovation in premium and export categories while reducing India’s reliance on imported toys.”