US-India Tech News Update for December 16, 2025

This is a fully AI generated summary and audio briefing of news in the US and India tech and startup industries.

In tech news, Skana Robotics has rolled out a distributed decision‑making algorithm that lets fleets of autonomous underwater robots share sensor data instantly, boosting navigation safety and cutting mission overlap for offshore inspection and subsea maintenance. The solution scales to large fleets and is already attracting ship owners and oil‑and‑gas operators.

Turning to funding announcements, D2C food brand WickedGud closed a fresh 2.2 million‑dollar round to deepen its omnichannel push, adding new noodle products and expanding into 5,000 stores. Early‑stage ed‑tech startup CuePilot AI raised 1.8 million dollars to power its voice‑first platform across 130 schools in India and Southeast Asia, with plans to reach a thousand schools worldwide. AI‑driven material‑discovery firm Novyte Materials secured a pre‑seed of about 0.47 million dollars to accelerate its generative‑AI platform for specialty chemicals and aerospace composites. Industrial B2B platform Magma added a $3 million tranche to its Series A, bringing the round to $8 million as it expands into five key Indian states and launches a waste‑management arm. Electric motorcycle maker Oben Electric raised roughly 10.2 million dollars in a pre‑Series B to fund a national rollout of 150 showrooms by March 2026 and target Rs 100 crore in revenue. Paytm Payments Services received a Rs 2,250 crore capital infusion via a rights issue, bolstering its offline and cross‑border aggregator licences. Travel fintech Scapia completed a $40 million Series B, narrowing its loss while scaling its travel‑credit card platform. Commercial‑vehicle startup Qucev secured a $15 million Series B to develop electric tractors and trucks, while seed‑stage fund Kae Capital is raising a $100 million vehicle for new early‑stage bets. Recruitment platform WorkIndia closed a Rs 97 crore Series B to upgrade its matching engine and expand into tier‑II and III markets. Finally, Speciale Invest launched a growth‑stage fund of roughly $155 million to back deep‑tech companies that have cleared technical validation, and Amazon is in early talks to invest up to $10 billion in OpenAI as part of a circular‑deal model.

On the hiring front, Thyrocare appointed Dr Ramesh Kinha as chief operating officer to sharpen laboratory operations across India, while ecommerce‑enablement SaaS firm Unicommerce named veteran Gaurav Juneja as chief revenue officer to drive its B2B and quick‑commerce expansion.

In M&A news, hospitality giant OYO, now rebranded as PRISM, completed a $525 million acquisition of US operator G6 Hospitality, giving it a foothold in the North American market and contributing about 30 percent of its revenue.

New technology highlights include Instacart’s AI‑driven dynamic pricing tool that is now under FTC scrutiny for potential anti‑competitive effects, and EYVA, a pocket‑sized, non‑invasive health device from Hyderabad’s BlueSemi, which measures multiple vitals in under a minute and has already generated $25 million in revenue. AI services firm CreateBytes is differentiating itself with impact‑based pricing, tying fees to client revenue uplift as it builds custom AI pipelines for manufacturing and fintech customers.

Finally, in crypto and Web3, the Binance Case Challenge engaged over 500 student teams across India’s top B‑schools, sparking fresh ideas on tokenised SIP‑style investments and everyday crypto payments. Bitcoin is currently at 87,202.23 dollars.