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Bukhatir Group Launches DIWAN – A Private AI Assistant Live Across All 16 Companieson a Fully Sovereign Stack, Built by Magure

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The Sharjah conglomerate has launched DIWAN, its own private, group-wide AI assistant, now live for employees across the Group and delivered with technology partner Magure. DIWAN runs on a privately deployed model within the Group’s own cloud environment, designed so that sensitive data stays inside the Group’s infrastructure.

Sharjah and Dubai, UAE, 26 August 2026: Bukhatir Group, one of the UAE’s oldest and most diversified business houses, and Magure, a UAE-headquartered enterprise AI company, today announced a strategic partnership to embed AI across the Group’s businesses, beginning with a milestone already achieved: DIWAN, a secure enterprise AI assistant, is now live in production for employees across the Group.

DIWAN, the Group’s own AI, is built on Magure’s agentic AI operating platform, MagOneAI and runs on a privately deployed model within Bukhatir’s own cloud environment. It is designed so that questions and documents are processed within the Group’s infrastructure, governed by its own policies, with audit logging of how AI is used across the organisation.

“Bukhatir Group has always looked ahead with confidence and purpose,” said Salah Bukhatir, Chairman of Bukhatir Group. “Artificial intelligence represents the next chapter in our journey—strengthening how we make decisions, serve our communities, and create lasting value. As we embrace its potential, we will remain guided by our values, our responsibility to our people, and our commitment to building a sustainable future.”

Charting Their Own AI Course

For a conglomerate spanning construction, education, real estate, retail and commercial development, and sports and leisure, the question was never whether to adopt AI employees across the Group were already reaching for it. The question was how to put AI in everyone’s hands without sensitive data leaking into public tools the Group neither controls nor sees.

Rather than renting AI capability on someone else’s terms, Bukhatir chose to chart its own course: a deployment in which the Group owns the environment, keeps its data within its own perimeter, and holds governance firmly in its own hands. Across every industry, the rise of unsanctioned “shadow AI” has created a new risk, as sensitive information finds its way into public tools that an organisation neither controls nor sees. DIWAN gives employees a sanctioned, secure alternative designed to remove that risk.

“For a group like ours the choice looked binary: put AI in our people’s hands quickly and accept that our data sits on someone else’s platform or keep full control and wait years to build it ourselves,” said Mohamed Sadawy, Group Chief Information Officer, Bukhatir Group. “I didn’t accept that we had to choose. In partnership with Magure, everything that matters to us—our cloud, our data, our governance—stayed inside the Group, and we still moved fast. DIWAN went from a decision to a live tool our people can actually trust with real work in a matter of weeks. And the risk of staff reaching for unsanctioned public tools is no longer something we manage day to day; we’ve designed it outwith help of Magure’s MagOneAI platform.”

Aligned with the UAE’s National AI Ambition

The UAE was the first nation in the world to appoint a Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, and its National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031 sets a clear ambition: to make the UAE a global leader in AI, with intelligence embedded across every sector of the economy. The nation’s AI Charter goes further, committing to AI that is safe, fair, transparent, and accountable with data privacy and human oversight at its core.

Bukhatir Group’s deployment is the private sector answering that call. A homegrown UAE conglomerate partnering with a UAE-headquartered AI company, deploying a sovereign AI capability on UAE soil with data residency in the country, governance owned by the enterprise, and AI capability that stays under national and organisational control rather than flowing to platforms abroad. In embedding AI across construction, education, real estate, retail, and sports, the Group is carrying the national vision into the everyday economy: not AI as a showcase, but AI as working infrastructure across the sectors that UAE families and businesses touch daily.

The deployment reflects an AI ambition that flows from the board down and a conviction, shared with the UAE’s own approach, that AI at enterprise scale must be governed, not merely adopted. MagOneAI provides the governance layer beneath every interaction: role-based access controls, centralised monitoring, cost attribution, and full audit trails across every use case, with human task nodes that pause any consequential workflow for human review and sign-off. AI assists and accelerates; people decide.

Magure is ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and ISO 42001 (AI Governance) certified, with SOC 2 Type II attestation, and the deployment is mapped to the UAE’s data protection landscape, data residency in the UAE, transparency over automated decisions, and enforceable data-subject rights native to the platform rather than bolted on.

From One Assistant to an AI-Woven Enterprise

DIWAN is the first step, not the destination. Bukhatir Group is establishing its own Group AI Centre of Excellence, supported in that effort by its partner Magure, to take AI into the fabric of every business: conversational analytics over the Group’s own data, intelligent document analysis, finance automation, and AI assistants across the Group’s customer-facing brands—each new capability built on the same governed platform and reaching production in weeks rather than quarters.

The Group’s vision extends further: AI copilots embedded in everyday workflows across every entity, predictive intelligence supporting decisions from procurement to enrolment, and a portfolio of enterprise-grade AI solutions that compounds each new use case cheaper and faster to deliver than the last. The destination is a cognitively connected enterprise, where intelligence flows across every Bukhatir business, responsibly and under the Group’s full control.

“The UAE has set out one of the boldest national AI ambitions in the world, and it will be realised by enterprises like Bukhatir Group organisations that treat AI as a foundation, not fashion,” said Akhil Koka, CEO, Magure. “Bukhatir understood early what most enterprises learn the hard way: ungoverned AI is a liability, and rented AI is a ceiling. DIWAN is live today on a sovereign stack the Group fully owns, and behind it sits a platform that can carry AI into every corner of the business governed, auditable, and private by design. A year from now this won’t be one assistant; it will be AI woven into finance, operations, education, and customer experience. That is the difference between adopting AI and becoming an AI-driven enterprise, and it is exactly the future the UAE is building towards.”

About Bukhatir Group

Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Sharjah, Bukhatir Group is one of the most diversified business houses in the UAE, with 16 companies across construction and contracting, education, information technology, real estate, retail and commercial development, sports and leisure, and services. Its operations span the GCC and North Africa.

For more information: www.bukhatirgroup.com

About Magure

Magure is a UAE-headquartered, DIFC-registered enterprise AI company in Dubai, with delivery centres in India and a presence in the USA. Its flagship platform, MagOneAI, is the sovereign enterprise agentic AI platform for building, deploying, and governing AI agents in production on your own infrastructure, with any LLM. Magure serves 80+ enterprise customers across government, financial services, healthcare, and large conglomerates, with 60+ AI deployments in production. Technology and deployment partners include NVIDIA, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, and Huawei. Certified to ISO 9001, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, and SOC 2 Type II.

For more information: www.magureinc.com.

Media Contacts

[Magure contact:info@magureinc.com]

Alivaa Hotels & Resorts opens new boutique hotel in McLeod Ganj

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Alivaa Hotels & Resorts has expanded its presence in Himachal Pradesh with the opening of Alivaa Boutique McLeod Ganj, adding a new property to its growing portfolio across India.

Located in McLeod Ganj, the new hotel combines contemporary facilities with the destination’s distinctive landscape, shaped by the Dhauladhar range and the region’s rich local culture. As a result, the property aims to offer travellers a modern stay while maintaining a strong connection with its surroundings.

The opening also marks the third hotel that property owner Rakesh Rawat has entrusted to Alivaa within the past 12 months. This expansion further strengthens the ongoing partnership between the hotel operator and the property owner.

Alivaa Boutique McLeod Ganj primarily caters to leisure travellers visiting the destination for its scenic surroundings, local experiences, and cultural attractions. The hotel offers modern accommodation and hospitality services while incorporating elements that reflect the unique character of Himachal Pradesh.

Furthermore, the new property supports Alivaa Hotels & Resorts’ broader expansion strategy across India’s leisure and business destinations. Through the addition of properties such as Alivaa Boutique McLeod Ganj, the company continues to strengthen its presence in emerging and established travel markets across the country.

Bengaluru startup Airbound secures $37 Mn to scale autonomous aircraft

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Bengaluru-based aerospace startup Airbound has raised $37 million in a Series A funding round as it accelerates the development and commercialisation of its lightweight autonomous aircraft for delivery operations. Alongside the fundraise, the company has signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government to develop a three-city drone delivery network, marking a significant step towards expanding autonomous aerial logistics.

Greenoaks led the funding round, which also attracted new and existing investors, including DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed, and Humba Ventures. Since its launch in 2023, Airbound has raised nearly $50 million in total funding.

The company will use the Series A capital to accelerate engineering, scale commercial manufacturing, and expand its go-to-market initiatives. Consequently, the latest funding will support Airbound as it moves from aircraft development towards larger-scale commercial deployment.

“We believe in a world where all movement happens in the air. Not some of it. Not most of it. All of it. A world where flying is cheaper than taking the bus, where moving a single package costs less than moving 20 tons by truck, and where we look at cars the way we look at horses today,” said Naman Pushp, founder and chief executive officer of Airbound.

“Better physics leads to better economics, which unlocks the potential to move people and goods for a fraction of a cent. That is what we’re building at Airbound,” he added.

Airbound combines autonomous technology and advances in materials science with a physics-first approach to develop transport aircraft that weigh less than the payload they carry. The company aims to improve the economics of aerial transportation by reducing the amount of aircraft weight that operators need to lift.

According to Airbound, transporting a single passenger or approximately 100 kg of cargo typically requires a purpose-built aircraft that weighs around 400 kg after accounting for fuel and payload. As a result, most of the aircraft’s weight goes towards lifting the aircraft itself rather than the payload. Airbound has designed its aircraft to reverse this equation, allowing the payload to account for the majority of the weight carried during flight.

“Moving goods has always forced a choice between fast and cheap,” said Neil Shah, partner at Greenoaks. “Trucks are cheap and slow, planes are fast and expensive, and nothing has broken the trade-off in more than a century. Airbound does. When one autonomous aircraft can move a single package with the cost efficiency of a fully loaded 20-ton truck, fast delivery and cheap delivery are no longer in tension, and roads stop being the default.”

Airbound designs, manufactures, and deploys its aircraft in India. The startup has already completed more than 1,000 autonomous flights without a mission failure in partnership with Narayana Health. During these operations, its aircraft transported diagnostic samples between healthcare facilities and reduced delivery times from hours to minutes.

Furthermore, Airbound will establish a drone delivery network connecting three cities in Andhra Pradesh under its agreement with the state government. The network will enable faster and more cost-efficient transportation while creating an operational foundation for large-scale autonomous aerial deliveries.

The company plans to scale the network to 10,000 daily flights and support deliveries across retail, e-commerce, and healthcare. Airbound believes the Andhra Pradesh programme could eventually provide a model for expanding aerial delivery networks across India.

“The bar for delivery in India is high. The benchmark is 10 minutes to your doorstep, at an extremely low cost. That’s the complexity here,” said Pushp. “If you can build something that works in India, it tends to work anywhere.”

“We’re excited about the bold new approaches emerging in autonomous delivery, and we love backing teams tackling hard problems,” said Harrison Shih, head of product for DoorDash Labs. “What drew us to Airbound is their willingness to go back to first principles and take on the physics and cost constraints that are keeping aerial delivery from being ubiquitous. Their progress in India, one of the world’s most demanding operating environments, shows what passionate engineering can do, and we’re eager to see what they build.”

Going forward, Airbound plans to expand its aircraft technology beyond package delivery. The company aims to eventually use the same platform for freight transportation and, over time, passenger travel between cities.

Chalet Hotels launches Athiva Pulse Navi Mumbai with wellness-focused hospitality

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Athiva Pulse has introduced a contemporary premium lifestyle hospitality concept in Navi Mumbai that combines energy, intention, and everyday wellbeing. The hotel features 152 automated rooms, including 34 suites, along with a 30,000 sq. ft. wellness and lifestyle ecosystem called The Daily Club. It also houses a 100% women-led artisanal café and expansive spaces for social gatherings and events.

Positioned as “Navi Mumbai’s home for the intentional few, where the practice of wellbeing begins at check-in,” Athiva Pulse brings Athiva’s philosophy of abundant joy, wellness by design, and immersive local experiences to the rapidly developing gateway city. Through this approach, the hotel combines contemporary hospitality with wellness, community, and purposeful experiences.

Speaking on the launch, Shwetank Singh, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Chalet Hotels Limited, said, “Athiva is an important evolution for Chalet Hotels as we continue to build a brand that reflects how the next generation of travellers wants to experience hospitality. With the conversion of the iconic Four Points By Sheraton Vashi to Athiva Navi Mumbai, we are bringing the “BIZWELL” proposition into a vibrant business destination, creating a hotel that is designed around the way people live today — with greater intention, a stronger focus on wellbeing and a deeper connection with the local community.

The opening of our second Athiva hotel, in partnership with Marriott International’s Autograph Collection, marks an important milestone as we continue to grow the brand and establish its distinct point of view in the premium lifestyle hospitality segment.”

Commenting on the opening, Kiran Andicot, Senior Vice President, South Asia, Marriott International, said, “India’s travellers are seeking distinctive design, a strong sense of place, and experiences that feel personal and original. Autograph Collection Hotels is uniquely positioned to meet this demand, bringing together individuality and character with the confidence of Marriott’s global standards of hospitality and service. Athiva Pulse Navi Mumbai, Autograph Collection is a compelling expression of this philosophy in Navi Mumbai, bringing a distinctive point of view to a rapidly evolving destination. We are delighted to partner with Chalet Hotels to bring this hotel to the market and further expand the choices available to India’s discerning travellers.”

At the centre of Athiva Pulse, The Daily Club makes wellbeing an integral part of everyday life. The facility features one of Navi Mumbai’s largest hotel fitness centres, with dedicated zones for cardio, strength, and functional training. Guests can also access stability equipment, personal trainers, saunas and active sports facilities.

Furthermore, The Daily Club extends the hotel’s wellness offering through advanced recovery and rejuvenation therapies. Its facilities include Cold Rush Infinity, Infrared Sauna, Compression Boots, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and Red-Light Therapy, giving guests access to a range of contemporary wellness treatments.

The Daily Club also goes beyond the traditional hotel fitness centre by creating a dedicated wellbeing community for hotel guests, members, and residents across Navi Mumbai. As a result, the space connects hospitality with an everyday wellness lifestyle.

Athiva Pulse also offers 30,000 sq. ft. of event space across its banquets, Celestial Terrace, and pre-function areas. These venues can accommodate weddings, social gala events, corporate gatherings and meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE).

Together, these facilities bring Athiva’s core values of joy, wellness, and sustainability into the guest experience. The hotel creates opportunities for connection, discovery and recreation while making wellbeing a natural part of everyday stays. At the same time, it incorporates conscious choices across its operations to reinforce its focus on purposeful hospitality.

With this approach, Athiva Pulse aims to demonstrate how contemporary hospitality can remain purposeful, joyful, and closely connected to its destination. The hotel seeks to create experiences that help guests live well, feel good, and build meaningful connections with their surroundings.

Athiva Pulse, Navi Mumbai, Autograph Collection is part of Marriott Bonvoy, Marriott International’s travel platform. Marriott Bonvoy members can earn and redeem points during stays at Athiva Pulse and across Marriott Bonvoy’s global portfolio of hotels and resorts.

Healthify merges with Berry Street to scale AI-powered nutrition and GLP-1 care

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Berry Street founder Noah Kotlove with Healthify founder Tushar Vashisht

U.S.-based nutrition startup Berry Street has merged with Khosla Ventures-backed Indian healthtech startup Healthify as demand for GLP-1 drugs continues to grow among people seeking weight-loss solutions.

The companies have not disclosed the financial terms of the merger. However, a JPMorgan report published this year estimated that more than 30 million people in the U.S. could use GLP-1 drugs by 2030, highlighting the growing opportunity in the metabolic health market.

Following the merger, Berry Street founder Noah Kotlove and Healthify founder Tushar Vashisht will serve as co-CEOs of the combined company. In the U.S., the business will operate under the Berry Street name, while it will retain the Healthify brand in markets such as India.

Healthify has raised more than $150 million in funding, according to sources. The company operates an app that combines AI-powered technology with human fitness and nutrition coaching. Last year, Healthify expanded its U.S. operations and introduced GLP-1-supported programmes in India. The company claims that it has served more than 45 million customers to date.

“Healthify’s mission has been to put a dietitian in every human’s pocket. We have spent a decade proving that AI can drive life-changing outcomes at scale. Berry Street gives us the clinical backbone and the coverage infrastructure to deliver that promise to the U.S. market at a scale no one has achieved before,” Healthify’s CEO Vashisht said in a press release.

Meanwhile, Berry Street operates a network of more than 2,000 clinics and provides insurance-covered GLP-1 care. The company raised $50 million last year in a funding round led by Northzone, Sofina, and FJ Labs. In addition, Berry Street offers AI-powered nutrition coaching and meal-tracking services and claims to have served more than 200,000 people through collaborations with Amazon, Walmart, and other platforms.

The merger will therefore combine Healthify’s AI-driven nutrition and fitness capabilities with Berry Street’s clinical network and insurance infrastructure. Together, the companies aim to expand access to personalised metabolic health and GLP-1 care across the U.S.

“By pairing AI with a nationwide network of expert clinicians, Healthify and Berry Street are building the platform that will redefine metabolic care, giving everyone access to daily nutrition guidance and expert dietitian advice,” Khosla Ventures’ founder Vinod Khosla said in a statement.

As a result, the combined company will focus on integrating AI-powered nutrition guidance, human clinical expertise and GLP-1 treatment support. The deal also gives Healthify a broader platform to scale its technology and coaching model in the U.S. while allowing Berry Street to strengthen its digital nutrition capabilities.

Yantra Packs Raises ₹12 Crore to Expand India’s Shared Returnable Packaging Network

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Karan Saharan & Vipin Battu, Co-Founders, Yantra Packs

Caret Capital leads investment as Yantra Packs advances a model where manufacturers access packaging capacity from a shared, technology-managed pool — rather than owning, warehousing, and disposing of assets themselves. The round reflects growing investor conviction that reusable packaging will become foundational infrastructure for India’s manufacturing supply chains.

Gurugram, 20 August 2026 — Yantraksh Logistics Private Limited, operating as Yantra Packs, has raised ₹12 Crore in a funding round led by Caret Capital. The round builds on the company’s earlier institutional backing from Impact Infracap and marks the next phase of Yantra Packs’ expansion. The company will use the proceeds to expand its reusable packaging pool across India’s manufacturing corridor, grow its operations and engineering teams, and deepen Trakkia — its proprietary network intelligence platform for managing packaging assets at scale.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Indian manufacturers collectively spend significant capital buying, storing, and disposing of packaging that serves a single purpose: moving a part from one plant to another. This is not a niche inefficiency. It is a structural cost embedded in every tier of the supply chain — from the largest OEM to the smallest component supplier. The result is unnecessary procurement costs, capital tied up in packaging inventory, and avoidable operational waste.

In more mature manufacturing economies, this problem was solved decades ago through shared returnable packaging pools: a third-party operator owns and manages a network of reusable assets, manufacturers pay for access rather than ownership, and the same physical assets circulate continuously across the supply chain. The model is capital-efficient for manufacturers, operationally superior, and structurally circular.

India built world-class manufacturing capacity before it built shared returnable packaging infrastructure. Yantra Packs exists to close that gap.

THE PROBLEM

India’s logistics sector carries costs equivalent to 14% of GDP — nearly double the 8% benchmark of Germany, the United States, and Japan. One underappreciated contributor is the absence of shared physical infrastructure for reusable packaging. Single-use corrugated packaging dominates because no managed alternative has existed at scale. The working capital, warehouse space, and procurement overhead this creates represent a recurring, largely invisible drag on supply chain economics.

The automotive sector illustrates the scale. India’s automotive supply chain spend stood at USD 30 billion in FY2025 and is projected to reach USD 44 billion by FY2030 — a 7.8% compound annual growth rate, according to a 2025 Frost & Sullivan analysis. The packaging flows that move components across this supply chain are almost entirely single-use today.

WHY NOW

Three forces are converging. First, India’s manufacturing base is expanding — PLI-linked investment, the China+1 supply chain diversification, and deepening commitments from global automotive OEMs are adding volume and complexity to Indian supply chains at a pace that makes ad hoc packaging management increasingly untenable.

Second, manufacturers are under sustained pressure to reduce costs, free working capital, and improve asset utilisation — and packaging is an area where the economics of shared access are now clearly superior to ownership.

Third, the technology required to coordinate a shared packaging network at an industrial scale, tracking asset movements across dozens of plants, reconciling utilisation across hundreds of supply chain legs, and generating operational intelligence in near real time — is now mature enough to build on. Yantra Packs has built it.

THE CATEGORY

Yantra Packs operates as a packaging infrastructure company — not a packaging supplier, not a logistics provider. The distinction matters.

A packaging supplier sells boxes. A logistics provider moves them. Yantra Packs owns, manages, and continuously redeploys a network of reusable packaging assets across manufacturing supply chains, providing manufacturers with ongoing access to packaging capacity without the capital, operational, or disposal burden of ownership. The business model is closer to infrastructure-as-a-service than to traditional packaging or logistics.

Although the company’s initial focus has been automotive manufacturing, the underlying model is equally applicable to industrial manufacturing, engineering, consumer products, retail, and other sectors where reusable packaging can replace disposable alternatives — a considerably wider opportunity than automotive alone.

HOW YANTRA PACKS WORKS

Manufacturers — OEMs, Tier-1 automotive suppliers, and industrial customers — subscribe to Yantra Packs’ packaging pool rather than procuring their own assets. Yantra Packs owns the physical packaging, manages its movement between emitter and receiver plants, monitors asset condition through Trakkia, and ensures assets are always available where they are needed. Customers include TATA Group, Lumax, Denso, Brembo, Delphi TVS, and Flipkart.

The primary focus is India’s automotive sector — among the most operationally demanding environments for reusable packaging, where just-in-time delivery schedules leave zero margin for asset unavailability. Today the company supports leading manufacturers across North, West, and South India through a growing reusable packaging network coordinated by Trakkia and is expanding its geographic and sector footprint with this round.

TRAKKIA

Operating a shared packaging network at an industrial scale is a technology orchestration challenge. Assets move continuously across dozens of plants, suppliers, and logistics intermediaries — each leg generating data, each delay creating downstream consequences. Coordinating this in real time, at the level of granularity that manufacturing supply chains demand, requires purpose-built enterprise technology.

Trakkia is Yantra Packs’ proprietary network intelligence platform — providing asset lifecycle management, utilisation monitoring, turnaround analysis, inventory intelligence, and network-level visibility across every movement in the system.

The platform enables Yantra Packs to identify where every asset is at any point in its lifecycle, detect utilisation patterns and recovery delays before they affect supply chain operations, generate billing and reconciliation data from movement records rather than manual reporting, and give customers operational visibility into the packaging that moves their parts — without requiring them to manage it themselves.

Because every asset movement enriches the operational dataset, Trakkia becomes increasingly effective at planning asset deployment, identifying bottlenecks, and improving utilisation as the network scales. Trakkia runs on Google Cloud, and through the Google for Startups Cloud Program, the company is extending the platform with intelligent workflow automation and AI-assisted decision support.

“Every conversation with an OEM or Tier-1 supplier now starts from the same premise: packaging should be capacity you access, not capital you own. Our customers are asking us to go deeper into their networks and wider across India’s manufacturing clusters. This round lets us do both — put more assets into circulation, build out national operations, and scale Trakkia so the network grows as fast as the supply chains it serves.” — Karan Saharan, Co-Founder, Yantra Packs.

“Manufacturers stopped owning the trucks that moved their parts decades ago and the servers that ran their systems a decade ago. Packaging is the last piece of supply chain infrastructure they still buy, store, and throw away. India built world-class manufacturing before it built shared returnable packaging infrastructure. We are building that missing layer — a shared physical network, coordinated by enterprise technology, that manufacturers access rather than own.” — Vipin Battu, Co-Founder, Yantra Packs.

USE OF PROCEEDS

The ₹12 Crore investment will be allocated across three areas:

Physical network expansion — increasing the asset pool to support growing customer demand and geographic expansion into new manufacturing clusters across India.

Team growth — hiring across operations leadership and engineering, with a particular focus on national operations coordination and Trakkia development.

Platform development — extending Trakkia’s capabilities in asset lifecycle management, customer reporting, and intelligent network planning.

As India’s manufacturing economy enters its next phase of growth, Yantra Packs aims to become the shared returnable packaging infrastructure that enables goods to move more efficiently across the country’s industrial supply chains.

About Yantra Packs

Yantra Packs (Yantraksh Logistics Private Limited) provides shared reusable packaging infrastructure to manufacturers across India. Founded by Vipin Battu and Karan Saharan, the company operates a managed pool of reusable packaging assets, underpinned by Trakkia — a proprietary network intelligence platform for asset lifecycle management and network coordination. Yantra Packs serves automotive OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers, and industrial customers across North, West, and South India.

Lead School bets on AI to triple Ebitda to Rs 90-Cr in FY27

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Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, founders of LEAD School

School edtech platform Lead School expects its revenue to grow by nearly 20% in FY27 and aims to almost triple its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) to around Rs 90 crore as it expands its artificial intelligence offerings and prepares for a potential public listing over the next two to three years, cofounder and chief executive Sumeet Mehta said.

The Mumbai-based company reported a 10% increase in operating revenue to Rs 386 crore in FY26, compared with Rs 351 crore in the previous fiscal year. Meanwhile, operating Ebitda jumped sevenfold to Rs 30 crore from Rs 4 crore. The company also reduced its net loss to around Rs 33 crore from Rs 43 crore in FY25. Mehta expects Lead to either achieve net profitability or reach break-even in FY27.

However, Lead’s FY26 revenue growth fell short of its earlier 25-30% target. According to Mehta, the delayed rollout of Miss Curie, the company’s AI-powered spoken-English product, primarily affected growth. The company spent additional time evaluating learning outcomes as underlying AI models continued to evolve rapidly.

“The investment went in; the revenue took some time because we wanted to test and be sure that we were launching it correctly,” he said.

Additionally, disruptions in Lead’s Middle East publishing business and delays in upselling grades 9 and 10 affected its FY26 performance. Uncertainty surrounding new CBSE textbooks also contributed to slower growth.

Miss Curie currently serves around 20,000 students across 70 schools. Lead plans to expand the product to more than 500 schools over the next year. Meanwhile, its Techbook product already generates around Rs 25-30 crore in revenue, and Mehta expects Miss Curie to reach a similar scale next year. Over the longer term, AI-powered products could account for 25-30% of Lead’s overall business, he said.

Lead currently works with approximately 9,000 active schools, compared with around 8,400 a year earlier. The company added nearly 900 schools during FY26 but lost about 300, resulting in around 600 net additions. Its net revenue retention remained close to 100%, below the company’s 110% target, as delayed AI product launches and uncertainty around textbooks limited upselling opportunities.

Meanwhile, Mehta has revised Lead’s earlier target of reaching 60,000 schools. The company now expects to serve 20,000-25,000 schools over the next five years. Lead had announced a target of reaching 60,000 schools in 2023, while it outlined a revised goal last year of reaching 25,000 schools and 10 million students by 2030.

“I don’t think with learning systems alone we will get to 60,000 because learning systems require a full transformation of schools and not a lot of private schools are ready for that,” Mehta said.

Instead, Lead plans to rely more heavily on products that schools can adopt more easily, including Miss Curie and its foundation programme, to drive future school additions.

Learning systems generated around 76% of Lead’s FY26 revenue, while publishing contributed the remainder. The company acquired Pearson’s India K-12 business in 2023, a deal that sources had reported would increase Lead’s school network from around 3,500 to approximately 9,000 schools.

Since then, Lead has converted some of its publishing customers into full learning-system clients. The company upgraded around 100 schools in each of the past two years, and these conversions increase revenue per school by approximately three times, Mehta said.

To support its AI initiatives, Mehta, cofounder Smita Deorah, and an existing investor recently invested Rs 21 crore in Lead. However, Mehta said the company does not require external funding to support organic growth. It could nevertheless raise capital to finance a potential acquisition.

Lead last raised a significant equity round in 2022, securing $100 million at a valuation of $1.1 billion.

On its IPO plans, Mehta said Lead continues to receive interest from investment bankers but wants to build a larger revenue base and improve profitability before going public. “Between FY28 and FY29 we will be in a good place,” he said.

HR World Summit South Africa Returns to Johannesburg for Its 5th Edition 

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16th September 2026 | Johannesburg, South Africa

Bringing Together HR Leaders to Shape the Modern Workplace in South Africa

Johannesburg, 3 July 2026: As South Africa’s business landscape evolves in response to rapid technological advancement, changing workforce expectations, and increasing economic complexity, the role of Human Resources has become more strategic than ever before. Today, HR leaders are responsible for workforce planning, leadership development, employee experience, skills transformation, and building organisational capability while aligning people strategies with business priorities.

Recognizing the critical role of HR in shaping the evolving workforce, Exito Media Concepts, a global B2B events organiser, announces the 5th Edition of HR World Summit South Africa 2026, taking place on 16 September 2026 at Focus Rooms – Universe, Johannesburg.

Designed as a platform for industry discussions and networking, the summit will bring together more than 200 CHROs, HR Directors, People & Culture Leaders, Talent Acquisition Heads, Learning & Development Executives, Employee Experience Specialists, business leaders, and solution providers to discuss workforce planning, leadership, talent strategy, and the future of work.

Through keynote presentations, panel discussions, fireside conversations, and interactive sessions, attendees will explore strategies for addressing today’s workforce challenges and preparing organisations for AI adoption, evolving workforce expectations, and future skills requirements. The summit offers HR leaders an opportunity to exchange ideas, build strategic partnerships, and explore current workforce trends.

Shaping the Next Chapter of Work and Leadership: 

Organisations across South Africa are adapting to rapid technological advances, changing workforce expectations, and shifting business priorities. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and data-driven decision-making are redefining how organisations operate, compete, and manage their workforces.

To remain adaptable, organisations must rethink traditional approaches to leadership, talent management, learning, employee wellbeing, and organisational culture. HR leaders are integrating AI into HR processes, strengthening employee engagement, expanding learning and development initiatives, and building skills needed for an increasingly digital workplace. The summit agenda addresses these priorities through industry discussions, case studies, and real-world examples.

The agenda focuses on the key workforce priorities shaping HR strategy across South African organisations. Key discussions will include:

● Navigating Work, Leadership, and Innovation in a rapidly changing business landscape

● Exploring the role of Artificial Intelligence in HR and workforce planning

● Strengthening employee wellbeing and workforce engagement

● Building skilled workforces for an evolving world of work

● Developing strategies to attract, retain, and develop talent

● Building a culture of continuous learning and skills development

● Learning from CHROs on people, culture, and change management

● Creating inclusive workplaces that support innovation and organisational performance

These discussions will provide practical insights, case studies, and proven approaches that HR leaders can apply across talent management, leadership development, employee experience, and workforce planning.

A Platform Where HR Leaders Shape the Future: 

The summit will provide delegates with practical examples of workforce transformation, leadership development, HR technology adoption, and people strategy from organisations across South Africa.

Alongside the conference sessions, attendees will have opportunities to network with peers, connect with solution providers, and exchange real world insights on workforce trends and workforce challenges.

Learn from South Africa’s Leading HR Visionaries: 

The speaker lineup includes HR leaders from organisations including:

Tebogo Maenetja- Chief Human Resources Officer, MTN

Michele Seroke- Chief Human Resources Officer, Mediclinic

Nomsa Lewisa- CIO Group Human Technology, First Rand

Mikateko Nkuna- Valoyi, Managing Executive: Talent & Culture, Vodacom

Lerato Thelejane—Executive: People Change Readiness and Enablement, Absa Group

Event Details:

Event: 5th Edition of HR World Summit South Africa 2026

Date: 16 September 2026

Time: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Venue: Focus Rooms – Universe, Johannesburg, South Africa

About Exito Media Concepts: 

Exito Media Concepts is a global B2B events organisation with over 16 years of experience delivering conferences across technology, cybersecurity, digital transformation, healthcare, finance, human resources, and other industries.

Exito brings together business leaders, solution providers, and decisionmakers through conferences focused on knowledge sharing, collaboration, and executive networking.

For more details on the HR World Summit South Africa 2026, visit:

https://exito-e.com/hrworldsummit/south-africa/ 

For Media Enquiries, please contact:

Ashrith Shetty | Senior Marketing & PR Executive, Exito Media Concepts Email: ashrith.shetty@exito-e.com

CFO Leadership Summit South Africa Announces Its 27th Edition 

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17 September 2026 | Johannesburg, South Africa

Intelligent Finance for a Digital-First Economy

Johannesburg, 3 July 2026: As organisations across South Africa adopt digital technologies, accelerate digital initiatives, advance digital capabilities, navigate economic uncertainty, and adapt to an increasingly data-driven business environment, the role of the Chief Financial Officer has evolved far beyond traditional financial stewardship. Today’s finance leaders are expected to guide capital allocation, strengthen liquidity management, improve forecasting accuracy through FP&A and predictive analytics, oversee enterprise risk, and lead the adoption of AI and digital finance technologies that support informed business decision-making.

The CFO Leadership Summit South Africa, taking place on 17 September 2026 at Focus Rooms –Universe, Johannesburg, is set to convene South Africa’s prominent finance leaders, CFOs, and industry experts to discuss how CFOs are strengthening financial resilience, improving capital efficiency, modernising finance operations, and preparing organisations for an increasingly datadriven economy. As one of the region’s prominent gatherings of finance executives, the summit will bring together over 200 CFOs, Finance Directors, Group Finance Executives, Controllers, Treasury Leaders, Risk & Compliance Heads, Tax Leaders, Digital Finance Experts, business leaders, and technology innovators to explore the strategies, technologies, and leadership approaches shaping the future of finance.

Designed as a major platform for sharing insights and executive networking, the summit will facilitate discussions among senior finance professionals, industry experts, and solution providers committed to supporting finance transformation. Through keynote presentations, executive panel discussions, fireside conversations, and interactive sessions, attendees will gain practical insights into AIpowered finance, modern FP&A, treasury optimisation, automation, ESG reporting, regulatory compliance, and enterprise risk management.

Redefining Finance Leadership in the Digital Era: 

South African organisations are navigating economic uncertainty, rising operating costs, evolving regulatory requirements, and rapid advances in AI and automation. As finance teams respond to these challenges, CFOs are increasingly focused on improving forecasting accuracy, optimising liquidity, strengthening governance, and using real-time financial data to support faster business decisions. The summit has been designed to showcase practical case studies, implementation strategies, and lessons from organisations leading finance transformation.

With an agenda focused on emerging finance trends designed for finance and business leaders, the summit will spotlight the key trends transforming modern finance.

Strategic discussions will include: 

● Architecting Financial Agility in an increasingly volatile and unpredictable economic landscape

● Managing Cash Flow, Controlling Costs, and Optimising Liquidity Through Intelligent, Data-Driven Financial Strategies to Navigate Persistent Inflationary and High-Cost Business Environments

● Advancing Precision Finance through Real-Time FP&A, Predictive Analytics, and DataDriven Decision-Making

● Redefining the CFO’s Role as a Growth Architect through strategic capital allocation and value creation

● Evolving from a compliance function into a source of competitive advantage

● Integrating ESG and Sustainable Finance to drive longterm profitability, cash flow, and operational efficiency beyond regulatory compliance

These discussions will provide finance leaders with practical approaches to improving forecasting accuracy, strengthening liquidity, modernising finance operations, adopting AI responsibly, and supporting sustainable business growth.

A Platform Where Finance Leaders Drive Business Transformation: 

The summit will feature a notable lineup of experienced CFOs, senior finance executives, digital transformation leaders, and industry experts representing some of South Africa’s most respected organisations. As a CFO Summit, the event will provide delegates with case studies on finance automation, AI adoption, FP&A modernisation, treasury management, ESG reporting, regulatory compliance, and enterprise risk management.

Beyond the conference sessions, the event will offer networking opportunities, enabling senior executives to establish professional connections, exchange ideas with peers,and exploreAI, FP&A, treasury, ERP, analytics, and finance automation solutions.

Learn from South Africa’s prominent Finance Visionaries: 

Mikaeel Tayob- Regional CFO, Bridgestone Middle East & Africa

Polani Sokombela- Chief Financial Officer, Auditor-General of South Africa

Qiniso Mthembu- Chief Financial Officer, Johannesburg Stock Exchange

Akesh Bansee- Chief Financial Officer, Unilever

Bradley Wentzel- Chief Financial Officer, Barloworld Equipment

Event Details: 

Event: CFO Leadership Summit South Africa 2026

Date: 17 September 2026

Time: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Venue: Focus Rooms – Universe, Johannesburg, South Africa

About Exito Media Concepts: 

Exito stands for “success,” a principle reflected in every experience we create. With over 16 years of expertise, Exito Media Concepts is a globally recognised B2B events organisation delivering more than 240 conferences annually across technology, cybersecurity, digital transformation, healthcare, finance, human resources, and other emerging enterprise sectors.

Through carefully curated agendas, globally recognised speakers, and market-driven insights, Exito creates high-impact platforms that foster strategic collaboration, accelerate innovation, and enable business leaders to address the evolving challenges of their industries.

For more details on the CFO Leadership Summit South Africa 2026, visit:

https://cfoleadershipsummit.com/south-africa/ 

For Media Enquiries, please contact:

Ashrith Shetty | Senior Marketing & PR Executive, Exito Media Concepts Email: ashrith.shetty@exito-e.com

Smartworks adds Rs 235-Cr rental revenue from client expansion

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Neetish Sarda, Founder and Managing Director, Smartworks

Smartworks Coworking Spaces gained 2.26% to Rs 534.55 after the company announced that it had secured Rs 235 crore in incremental contracted rental revenue through expansion mandates from existing clients across multiple cities.

The new mandates include a global engineering and technology services leader that operates as a subsidiary of a Fortune India 500 company, the India IT services arm of a Forbes 2000 company, and a Fortune 500 global infrastructure consulting firm, among others. Several of these clients are developing advanced technology and artificial intelligence capabilities at their India centres.

The contracted value represents leasing rental revenue from engagements with tenures of up to 60 months. The addition also builds on Smartworks’ contracted rental revenue base of Rs 5,400 crore as of 30 June 2026.

Neetish Sarda, founder and managing director of Smartworks, said, “The strongest validation of any platform is when existing clients choose to grow with it. Our large, fully managed campuses are built for scale, so businesses can expand seamlessly within the same campus, without the disruption of relocating, refitting, or searching for space across the city. That is a decisive advantage for organisations growing at a pace. An expansion of this scale, which includes large multinational corporations, including Fortune 500 and Forbes 2000 companies, deepening commitments they have already made, reflects the trust and stickiness our model creates. Large organisations today want more than office space. They want prime locations, quality infrastructure, a strong employee ecosystem, and the room to scale on demand, and that is exactly what our managed campuses deliver.”

Smartworks Coworking Spaces operates managed office campuses for large enterprises. The company leases commercial buildings and provides integrated workspace solutions to businesses.

As of 30 June 2026, Smartworks managed approximately 16.9 million square feet of office space across 70 centres in 15 cities in India and Singapore. Its managed-campus model allows existing clients to expand within the same locations as their space requirements increase.

The company’s financial performance also improved in the June 2026 quarter. Smartworks reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 13.15 crore in Q1 FY27, compared with a net loss of Rs 4.20 crore in the quarter ended June 2025.

Meanwhile, sales climbed 44.05% to Rs 546.25 crore in Q1 FY27 from the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year. The latest client expansion mandates, together with the company’s growing contracted rental revenue base and improved quarterly performance, highlight continued demand for flexible and fully managed workspace solutions from large enterprises.