Tech3: SoftBank Explores India Investments Amid AI Copyright Controversy

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In right now’s publication: 

• SoftBank’s Sumer Juneja on India investments, competing with IPOs
• India’s AI copyright draft attracts backlash
• Brookfield’s $1bn Mumbai GCC push

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After two quiet years, SoftBank is prepping to show the faucets again on — and India is again on its funding map.

• Juneja informed us SoftBank is able to re-enter the sector: “We’re assured that we’ll deploy capital in 2026.”

• After sitting out on most new offers since 2022, he mentioned the agency is evident about its stance: “We need to proceed investing in India… we aren’t going to remain out of the market.”

A deeper pipeline and extra disciplined founders have pulled SoftBank again into deal mode.

SoftBank’s subsequent India chapter received’t be about quantity — it’ll be about bets wired into AI, from shopper apps to world enterprise performs.

• Juneja mentioned SoftBank’s thesis hasn’t modified: “We’ve all the time performed the AI theme… utilizing machine studying, utilizing AI, and disrupting an present business.”

The brand new pipeline spans India-to-US founders, AI-first shopper corporations with actual income, and enterprise AI for sectors like healthcare.

• A tighter funding surroundings has cast leaner, extra considered founders — and SoftBank sees that as fertile floor, not friction

Startups are heading public quicker than ever — and SoftBank now finds itself battling the one rival no VC outmuscles: the IPO window.

• Juneja was candid: “In the present day we are literally competing towards the IPO market as properly.”

Founders who as soon as chased mega-rounds now chase listings, reshaping late-stage fundraising and compressing private-market optionality.

• Nonetheless, he referred to as the shift wholesome for India: “The most effective factor you are able to do to any ecosystem is to present it extra capital.”

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Main know-how corporations are pushing again onerous towards DPIIT’s proposed AI copyright framework, warning that the mannequin might set off litigation and harm India’s startup ecosystem.

• Their key objection is {that a} necessary blanket licence for coaching knowledge can be “technically unworkable and economically unviable”

The proposed system requires a statutory blanket licence for coaching on all “legally accessed” copyrighted works.

• Corporations say this doesn’t clear up entry bottlenecks 

• The mannequin additionally shifts the burden of proof, doubtlessly requiring builders to point out they didn’t use a particular work, which corporations say is infeasible 

Flat-rate funds might favour massive content material homes over small creators, corporations argue. 

In a separate submission, Enterprise Software program Alliance (representing Adobe, AWS, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and OpenAI) urged the federal government to undertake a statutory text-and-data mining exception.

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Talking on the sidelines of the Microsoft AI Tour in Mumbai, Fadnavis mentioned the state authorities is in late-stage talks with the Canadian different asset administration big, which plans to speculate over $1 billion to arrange its GCC in Mumbai.

• This can be Brookfield’s largest GCC in Asia, unfold throughout 2 million sq. ft
• The GCC is anticipated to create 15,000 direct and 30,000 oblique jobs

Moreover, Fadnavis mentioned FedEx can be more likely to arrange a GCC within the Navi Mumbai airport cluster. Whereas each corporations are nonetheless in negotiations with the state authorities, he expressed hope that memoranda of understanding (MoUs) can be signed quickly.

Fadnavis additionally launched MahaCrimeOS AI, an Azure-powered platform to speed up cybercrime investigations.

• The platform is already reside in 23 police stations in Nagpur, with a proposal underway to roll it out throughout all 1,100 police stations within the state

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