Consumer D2C and late-stage private equity drove the day's action on 14 July 2026. Footwear brand BUILT bagged $2 Mn in pre-seed capital, while Avendus moved to close its Future Leaders Fund III at around ₹1,800 crore. On the news front, the CCI fined HP India ₹138.9 crore for tender rigging on the GeM portal, Singapore's High Court refused to halt Byju Raveendran's jail term, and Temasek trimmed its Lenskart stake for nearly ₹1,934 crore. BUILT is a D2C footwear startup founded earlier this year by Vedant Lamba and Vijayant Dhaka. It builds 'natural movement' shoes with wider toe boxes, minimal heel drop and greater flexibility, and currently sells two silhouettes, including a flagship shoe and a court shoe for pickleball, tennis, badminton and squash. The startup raised $2 Mn (about ₹17 crore) in a pre-seed round led by Singapore-based Tanglin Venture Partners, with participation from Lifelong Group founder Bharat Kalia. BUILT will use the capital for R&D, proprietary tooling, product design and manufacturing, including custom footwear moulds, along with inventory expansion. It has launched nine footwear SKUs so far and plans around 20 apparel and accessories SKUs this week. Avendus is set to mark the final close of its Future Leaders Fund III (FLF III) at around ₹1,800 crore (about $187 Mn) by the end of July, as the private equity firm steps up late-stage bets. Launched in 2024, the fund had a target corpus of ₹1,500 crore with an equal greenshoe option. The fund has deployed about 30% of its capital and plans to back another five to six companies over the next year. It recently infused about ₹140 crore into Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services through a secondary transaction. FLF III has also invested in La Renon Healthcare, Aragen Life Sciences and IL JIN Electronics. The broader Future Leaders Fund platform manages more than ₹4,000 crore, with holdings in Lenskart, Licious, Juspay, Zeta and others. TheCompetition Commission of India imposed a cumulative penalty of ₹138.9 crore on HP Indiaacross two cartelisation cases on the Government e-Marketplace. HP was fined ₹126.9 crore over personal computer tenders and ₹11.98 crore over printing supplies, for dictating bid prices and coordinating cover bids. HP drew a lower penalty under Section 46 as it voluntarily self-reported, and the CCI ordered compliance training within 60 days. Anthropic has introduced rupee-denominated pricing for its Claudechatbot in India, its second-largest market after the US. The Pro plan starts at ₹2,000 per month billed annually, the Max plan at ₹11,999 per month, and Team subscriptions at ₹2,399 per user per month, all inclusive of GST. India accounts for an estimated 5.8% to 7.2% of Claude's global usage. The move follows Anthropic opening its Bengaluru office and appointing Irina Ghose as managing director. The Singapore High Court has rejected BYJU'S cofounder Byju Raveendran's plea to stay a six-month jail sentence for contempt, leaving it in place should h
