From safety of Indian cars to Nvidia's Jensen Huang's visit, our top stories of the week

1) Is your car safe?

Mohan Savarkar, chief product officer, Tata Motors Image: Anirudha Karmakar for Forbes India

It is evident that the festive season is an excellent opportunity to clock those sales numbers for the auto sector. To attract consumers, they come up with attractive designs, new colourways, competitive mileage numbers, comforting seats and reactive shock-ups, sleek entertainment units, sunroofs, easy finance options, and, of course, they tout the safety features and ratings. Consumers can test many of the listed features, but not even a fool would like to submit for a crash test after purchasing the vehicle. BNCAP and Global NCAP do it for automakers. But are these tests and ratings telling the truth about the vehicle's safety? There are some gaps in the standards and the reality on the road. Here's an attempt to put the pieces together.

2) How Hyundai conquered India

One of the week's most talked about news stories was the lacklustre listing–India's biggest IPO–though, of Hyundai Motor India. If we leave the immediate response of the bourses aside, this move to launch an IPO was Hyundai's show of confidence in Indian consumers. After all, their preference has brought the South Korean carmaker to the number 2 position in the Indian market--a market that's been impenetrable, confusing, and disappointing for many European and American auto companies. Hyundai posted net profits of ₹4,709.25 crore for FY24, while revenues stood at ₹61,436 crore. What is it that Hyundai has understood about the Indian consumers that remains a mystery to other carmakers? Find out here.

3) Improving the chances of success

Shailendra Singh and Rajan Anandan, managing directors at Peak XV Partners, recently unveiled the 10th cohort of the venture capital firm's Surge programme for early-stage startup founders. This programme provides up to $3 million in seed funding to the chosen startups. It gives “full-stack support and dedicated partnership” from the Surge investment and operating teams, including hiring, product, tech and marketing. In this interview with Forbes India, the two VC investors talk about why Surge was started, its design to improve the chances of success of the participating entrepreneurs, and how it's becoming increasingly global.

Discover

1) Is Priyanka Chopra Jonas returning to Bollywood?

The Desi girl is one of India's most successful exports to Hollywood. She's playing the long game. She began with singing and collaborating with Pit Bull, then did a voiceover for a Disney film, and then did her acting debut with a network show; she was on fire in the reboot of Baywatch, she is producing films, she is writing books, she is launching her beauty product line, and also endorsing other beauty houses such as Max Factor. One might ask, where will she find time for Bollywood in this jam-packed schedule? It turns out that time is not an issue for Priyanka Chopra Jonas; she is waiting for the right thing–a good script. Watch the multi-hyphenate powerhouse talk about her journey and the upcoming possibilities.

2) Of privacy and trust

Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam built one of the world's first caller ID and call-blocking apps. You know it as Truecaller. In an interview for Forbes India Pathbreakers, the co-founders of Truecaller discuss the impact of evolving industry and regulatory trends on their business strategies for future growth. The conversation also focuses on what the Stockholm-headquartered company is doing to alleviate data privacy concerns, how it plans to use AI to prevent fraud, why it is building TrueGPT, its ambition in the payments space, and more.

3) Inside AI influencer trend

Abhishek Razdan, co-founder and CEO, AVTR Meta Labs, which created influencer Naina Image: Bajirao Pawar for Forbes India

When Noonoouri, a digital character, quasi-AI personality meets social media, maven meets glamour guru created by Joerg Zuber, burst onto the fashion scene in 2018, the world couldn't believe the level of influence she wielded. Everyone from Dior to KKW lined up to work with her; she got a music deal with Warners Music and much more. Of course, several other characters have popped up, but in the age of Artificial Intelligence, the business of digital influence has also evolved. Now, we have AI influencers winning AI beauty pageants! Influencer marketing is mostly unregulated and is still grappling to solidify its place. But then you add AI to the mix, and ethical concerns grow even louder. How are marketers engaging with this new tool and the challenges that tag along? Here are some answers. 

4) Nvidia's India bet

Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia.

Continuing the conversation about AI, India was also fangirling over the other poster boy of AI and the semiconductor industry this week. Co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, was in Mumbai for the chipmaker's first-ever AI summit in the country. His cool all-black ensemble, complete with a biker jacket, glasses, and silver hair persona, had tech enthusiasts, government officials, and entrepreneurs eating out of his palms. There were fanboys and girls everywhere. And all for the right reasons. Everyone wants to get on the high-speed rail of AI with the help of Nvidia, and Huang just announced several collaborations with key Indian companies across the sector. Here are the details.