Author: Arabian Media staff

From GST reforms cutting healthcare costs to Swiggy making bets on curated gifting to cash in on festive boom, YourStory brings you stories that highlight significant developments across industries. Latest news:New GST reforms slash healthcare costs, boost insurance accessIndia has announced one of the most sweeping resets to its goods and services tax (GST) regime since the system’s introduction in 2017, cutting levies on a wide range of medical devices and drugs while eliminating tax on health and life insurance premiums. At its 56th meeting on Saturday, the GST Council, chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, unveiled a two-tier…

Months after the collapse of his beauty and content commerce unicorn, Good Glamm Group’s Darpan Sanghvi is staging a comeback with a new venture. On Wednesday, Sanghvi unveiled ‘CoFounder Circle’, an AI-native acceleration platform aimed at helping startups and small businesses access the people, tools, and capital needed to grow.In a LinkedIn post announcing the launch, Sanghvi acknowledged the personal and professional toll of Good Glamm’s unravelling, describing himself as “the ultimate failure” and recalling the “crippling self-doubt” that followed. “I was the founder of a company that scaled and then failed. And when you fail after that scale, you…

Foodtech giant Swiggy on Thursday rolled out Giftables, a new on-demand gifting service, for users to order curated items such as cakes, flowers, perfumes, and electronics, delivered within an hour. The move comes ahead of India’s festive season, when consumer spending typically peaks.The feature, live in Bengaluru and set to expand to Mumbai, Delhi, and other metros, lets customers combine multiple gifts into a single order. Deliveries can be made either to the buyer or directly to the recipient in 10 to 60 minutes.Swiggy plans to add an AI-powered chatbot in the coming weeks that will suggest gift options based…

GST tax rates on common use items ranging from hair oil to corn flakes, TVs, and personal health and life insurance policies were slashed after the all-powerful GST Council on Wednesday approved a complete overhaul of the tangled Goods and Services Tax regime.The GST Council approved rate overhaul by limiting slabs to 5% and 18% effective from September 22, the first day of Navaratri.Almost all personal use items will see rate cuts as the government looks to boost domestic spending and cushion the economic blow of the US tariffs.Briefing reporters after a marathon daylong GST Council meeting, Union Finance Minister…

“At 45, failure was not an option. I had to succeed — not just for me, but for the people who believed in this idea,” says Samir Shah, Founder and Chairman of Strategic Growth Advisors (SGA).Fifteen years ago, Samir stood at a crossroads that most would hesitate to approach. He made a calculated, high-stakes commitment to reshape an industry that few in India had even begun to understand. In an ecosystem often driven by volume and visibility, SGA stood out by rooting its success in one simple, unwavering principle: create measurable value for every stakeholder. From its first client to serving…

Reveal HealthTech, a two-year-old startup specialising in AI solutions for healthcare, has raised $7.2 million in a Series A round led by Leo Capital, with participation from Sanos Capital. The company, incubated by W Health Ventures and 2070 Health, is positioning itself as a partner for US hospitals, life sciences firms, and medical device makers seeking to apply artificial intelligence to patient care and operations.Founder and CEO Sanchit Mullick, who spent over two decades in technology services before co-founding Reveal with Boston Children’s Hospital surgeon Dr. Salim Ashar, said the idea emerged from a wave of digitisation in US healthcare. “The country…

India’s internet user base has grown rapidly since 2016, driven by cheap data and wider smartphone access. Yet even today, a large section of society struggles to use digital services, either because they lack the skills or because the internet remains largely English-first.Navana.ai aims to change this by allowing people to access apps and services in their own language.The ideaA CBWE report notes that only 38% of Indian households are digitally literate, and with just 6–10% of Indians speaking English, according to the 2011 Census and a Lok Foundation–Oxford University survey, many are prevented from accessing English-first digital services in…

Hello,It’s September already, and you know what’s beckoning? The festive season!Foodtech giants Swiggy and Zomato, expecting higher order volumes during the festive months, have decided to hike their platform fees to cash in on the rush. While Swiggy has increased its platform fee to Rs 15 per order, its highest so far, Eternal—the parent of food delivery giant Zomato and quick-commerce app Blinkit—has raised the fee on food orders to Rs 12, a 20% increase.Meanwhile, OpenAI made a new acquisition with experimentation-platform company Statsig. It also onboarded its founder, Vijaye Raji, as the CTO of its applications unit, where he will…

Bengaluru-based FirstClub has raised $23 million in Series A funding at a valuation of about $120 million (Rs 1,050 crore), less than three months after its launch. The round was led by Accel and RTP Global, with participation from Blume Founders Fund, 2am VC, Paramark Ventures, and Aditya Birla Ventures.Founded by Ayyappan R, a Flipkart and Myntra executive who later served as CEO of Cleartrip, FirstClub is pitching itself as India’s first ‘quality-first’ quick commerce platform—a deliberate contrast to competitors such as Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart.“Quick commerce today is built for speed, not standards. At FirstClub, we’re changing that,”…

When the Ever Given container ship blocked the Suez Canal in 2021, the largely hidden world of supply chains and global trade was visible to everyone. The crisis laid bare the complexities of the fragmented and complex supply chains in the post-pandemic world, particularly affecting the fast-growing ecommerce and direct-to-consumer sectors that have to grapple with delays, lack of visibility, and rising costs.“If you’re a founder sourcing products from China to sell in India, every shipment feels like navigating a maze. Different partners are involved at every stage, processes are unclear, and unexpected delays are common,” explains Dibyanshu Tripathi, who…