Archives March 2026

Dr. Venkatesh Devanur Elected President of World Neem Organisation at International Neem Summit 2026

Hyderabad, March 17: Dr. Venkatesh Devanur, a Hyderabad-based agri-biotech entrepreneur and scientist, has been elected President of the World Neem Organisation (WNO) at the recently concluded 3rd International Neem Summit – 2026 and the 4th Global Neem Trade Fair, held in Pune.

The summit and trade fair were organised by the World Neem Organisation (WNO) and brought together researchers, industry representatives, farmers, and neem enthusiasts from across India and several other countries.

Dr. Venkatesh Devanur Elected President of World Neem Organisation at International Neem Summit 2026

The World Neem Organisation is an international non-profit body dedicated to promoting the neem tree and its benefits for agriculture, health, the environment, and industry. The organisation serves as a global platform for individuals and institutions working with neem to share knowledge, research, and resources while promoting the wider use of neem worldwide.

The key objectives of WNO include:

  • Promoting neem cultivation and plantation globally
  • Encouraging research on neem’s medicinal and agricultural benefits
  • Supporting the production and commercialization of neem-based products
  • Raising awareness about neem’s role in sustainable agriculture, healthcare, and environmental protection

Dr. Venkatesh Devanur has been actively involved in several agriculture-related organisations. He is the founding member and secretary of the BioAgri Inputs Producers Association (BIPA), one of the world’s oldest trade bodies in the bio-agriculture sector. Prior to his election as President, he served as Vice President of the World Neem Organisation.

He is also a Director in a joint venture with Koppert Biological Systems (Netherlands) and is widely recognised as a pioneer in India’s bio-pesticide and organic agriculture industry, leading companies that develop eco-friendly crop protection and soil health solutions.

The summit was attended by several distinguished guests, including Justice K. K. Tated, Chairman of the Animal Rights Commission, Government of Maharashtra, Dr. B. N. Vyas, President of WNO, along with leading scientists, industry representatives, and farmers.

During the conference, a White Paper on the Status of the Neem Industry was released. A documentary highlighting the importance of collecting and processing neem seeds and fruits was also launched to benefit neem seed and fruit suppliers, emphasizing the significance of proper collection and value addition within the neem supply chain.

The event witnessed participation from more than 150 delegates from India and overseas. Eminent scientists and experts presented research papers on the role of neem in agriculture, human health, cancer research, and other critical areas, creating opportunities for collaboration between academia and industry.

Turquoise Health Announces $40 Million Series C to Become the Operating System for Healthcare Contracts and Payments

SAN DIEGO, CA —March 17– Turquoise Health (“Turquoise”), a multi-sided healthcare pricing and payment platform, today announced it has raised $40 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Adams Street Partners, and Yosemite.

Healthcare’s financial infrastructure is broken in a way that costs the industry nearly $1 trillion in administrative spend annually. The core problem is structural, with the contracts underlying every payment decision stored in disparate systems, inconsistently interpreted, and effectively invisible to the parties bound by them. The result is a world where it’s difficult for anyone to translate those rates into accurate payment amounts. The current system results in both sides losing money due to denials and administrative overhead, or needing to maintain teams of analysts to manage complex reimbursement scenarios and reviews of documentation. This also leads to the poor experience that most patients have with medical bills and the financial infrastructure supporting care. By centralizing data, contract information, and clinical coverage rules, Turquoise addresses the industry’s pricing opacity and revenue leakage, transforming the cost of care from a source of conflict and confusion into a clear, actionable source of truth.

Turquoise’s platform creates a new way to price, contract and transact in healthcare. Clear Rates synthesizes machine-readable files, claims data, Medicare benchmarks and all other relevant pricing signals into a single, auditable rate for every payer-provider combination. Contracts leverages AI to tag every rate and provision across a customers’ contract portfolio, turning static documents into a dynamic operating system so teams can find contract details, compare performance and model negotiation scenarios in a few clicks. Together, they lay the foundation for a fundamentally different healthcare transaction, one where standardized pricing and aligned contracts dissolve administrative waste and improve the patient experience by making same-day, transparent transactions the norm. Woven across the platform is AskTQ, the AI-powered pricing and contracting layer that cuts weeks of manual research down to seconds.

“Our goal has always been to move the industry toward clear, accurate, and actionable healthcare pricing,” said Chris Severn, CEO and Co-Founder of Turquoise. “By evolving from a data vendor to a full workflow and transaction platform, we are building the infrastructure for transparent, real-time payments. This round allows us to ensure that this model becomes the industry standard.”

Turquoise has demonstrated significant market momentum, with 35% of monthly active users now leveraging multiple products on the platform. The company’s platform is now utilized by more than 280 customers, including 10 of the top 25 health systems, 4 of the 5 national payers, 9 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies, and 6 of the top 10 insurance brokers. The new capital will be used to assist with additional go-to-market efforts, accelerate the buildout of the product roadmap, and increase headcount. Turquoise has grown its team to nearly 200 employees since its founding 5 years ago and looks to add more talented, motivated people to the team.

“Turquoise is uniquely positioned at the center of the healthcare economy, leveraging a data moat bolstered by their subject matter expertise, extensive library of over 65,000 contracts and best-in-class user interface,” said Vig Chandramouli, Partner at Oak HC/FT. “We have tracked Chris and the team since 2021 and are impressed by their ability to expand adoption simultaneously across providers, payers, employers, and life sciences. Their platform doesn’t just provide data; it embeds transparency directly into the negotiation and payment workflows of the industry’s largest stakeholders.”

Pine Launches Message Gateway, Turns Everyday Messages Into AI-Powered Tasks

PALO ALTO, Calif. – March 17, 2026 – Pine, the trusted AI agent for consumers’ digital chores that delivers results, today announced Message Gateway, a new communication layer that allows users to interact with Pine’s AI assistant from anywhere, including messaging platforms, voice notes and phone calls, while Pine executes tasks in the background through AI agents.

By turning everyday messages into real-world actions, Message Gateway transforms Pine into an always-available assistant that operates across a user’s digital life. Message Gateway enables Pine to operate across time and channels, managing tasks that may run for minutes, hours or even weeks.

It transforms messaging from simple conversations into a control interface for AI agents that can perform real-world work.

“Most AI assistants today still live inside a single app,” said Pine CEO Stanley Wei. “But real life doesn’t happen inside one interface. With Message Gateway, Pine can meet users wherever they already communicate, whether that’s messaging, voice or mobile. Our goal is simple: You talk to Pine naturally, and Pine takes care of the work.”

Instead of having to open a specific application or interface to interact with an AI assistant, Message Gateway users simply send a message or speak naturally via channels like Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack or the Pine mobile app. Pine will understand the request, launch the appropriate AI agents and manage the task over time. The AI assistant tracks progress and keeps the user updated while tasks are completed.

Unlike most voice assistants designed for quick commands or chatbots built primarily to answer questions, Pine is designed to manage long-running tasks that require coordination, follow-up and execution across multiple systems. Instead of returning a single response, Pine can start tasks that unfold over time, interacting with services, making calls, researching information and keeping users informed as progress is made.

Key capabilities of Message Gateway include:

·        Multi-channel access: Users can interact with Pine through messaging platforms such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack and the Pine mobile app.

·        Voice and audio support: Voice notes and audio messages are automatically transcribed and processed, allowing users to speak naturally instead of typing.

·        Persistent task management: Tasks can run asynchronously for minutes, hours or days, while Pine tracks progress and provides updates.

·        Single assistant experience: Users interact with one assistant, while multiple AI agents work behind the scenes to complete tasks.

·        Real-world execution: Pine can perform actions such as negotiating bills, making calls, booking appointments, researching information or generating documents.

·        Context and memory: Pine remembers important details from conversations so users do not need to repeat themselves.

“What makes Pine different is that it doesn’t just answer questions; it actually handles things for you,” said a Pine user. “Being able to send a message and have Pine take care of a task in the background feels like having a real assistant.”

Message Gateway is part of the Pine AI assistant platform, a subscription-based service designed to help consumers delegate everyday digital tasks through natural conversation. Users can interact with Pine through messaging channels, voice or the Pine mobile app, while Pine manages the work through AI agents operating in the background.

Message Gateway represents a key step toward Pine’s broader vision of building an AI assistant that operates across a user’s entire digital life. Rather than requiring people to adopt another standalone app, Pine aims to create an AI operating layer for everyday tasks, where simple conversations become the interface for getting things done.

PwC India Foundation strengthens climate resilient livelihoods for more than 400 farming households through flood recovery initiatives

Chandigarh, March 17: PwC India Foundation (PwCIF) is expanding its commitment to integrated flood recovery interventions by supporting more than 400 farming households through climate-smart agriculture and rural livelihood interventions. In collaboration with Shramik Bharti, an NGO focused on grassroots development, PwCIF is aiding communities across Moga and Tarn Taran in Punjab to transition to natural farming, diversify income streams, and enhancing village-level disaster readiness.

Sanjeev Krishan, Chairperson, PwC in India and Jaivir Singh, Vice Chairman, PwC India Foundation at the Model Farm along with farmers.

In Moga, the initiative begins at the household level. PwCIF is supporting more than 90 beneficiary households, with kitchen gardens and backyard poultry, to move towards natural farming, boosting household income and improving nutritional outcomes. Each garden, of about 600 sq. ft., provides year-round access to safe, chemical free vegetables and enables families to save an estimated INR 1,500–2,000 per month on vegetable purchases.

PwC India Foundation strengthens climate resilient livelihoods for more than 400 farming households through flood recovery initiatives

 

Climate‑smart cultivation in practice: farmers tending to crops on a flood‑recovered farm.

At the same time, the project is building proof points for scale. Ten multi-crop model farms are demonstrating how natural farming, intercropping and soil friendly practices can improve farm economics, with model farmers targeted to increase their incomes by 40%. As these practices gain traction, neighbouring farmers are beginning to replicate them, creating a growing circle of indirect beneficiaries.

Poultry rearing as a new income stream for farmers in Moga, complementing natural farming on their fields.

Farmer operating the community jaggery processing unit that adds value to locally grown sugarcane.

To further strengthen farm-based livelihoods, the initiative includes a community-based jaggery processing unit that supports value addition to locally grown sugarcane and better price realisation for farmers. Shared fossil fuel‑free multi-seeding drills are also being used as village-level tool banks to enhance farm efficiency and encourage climate-smart cultivation practices.

PwC India leadership team and NGO partner Shramik Bharti discussing with the Moga community about the impact of our programme and understanding the impact of floods in the region.

Arnab Basu, Partner and Chief Industries Officer, PwC India, at a nutrition garden in Moga.

As part of the ongoing efforts, the PwC India leadership team visited Moga to engage with farmers and community groups, assess the progress of natural farming and livelihood diversification projects, and reaffirm the organisation’s long-term dedication to disaster resilience and livelihood restoration programs.

“PwC India Foundation’s role in Punjab is centred around helping farming communities transition from crisis to resilience,” said Jaivir Singh, Vice Chairman, PwC India Foundation. “By merging natural farming, diversified livelihoods, and robust village institutions, we aim to support farmers in Moga and Tarn Taran to rebuild with dignity with these initiatives in turn creating replicable models that can be curated to different local contexts across more districts in the country.”

Integrated farming with livestock support on smallholder farms in Moga.

The successful implementation in Moga laid the foundation for an extension of the initiative to Tarn Taran. In this flood-affected border district, PwCIF is collaborating with more than 325 households to restore agricultural land, integrate natural farming, and strengthen village disaster response and resilience committees.

PwC India Leadership team along with farmer beneficiaries of the initiative

Beyond Moga and Tarn Taran, PwCIF’s broader engagement across India focuses on restoring livelihoods, strengthening critical local infrastructure and building community-led disaster preparedness across districts affected by floods. The Foundation aims to create integrated, scalable models that can support farming communities in navigating future climate and livelihood risks, while contributing to India’s long-term sustainable development.

Riskified Launches Dispute Resolve for Shopify to Help Merchants Automate Chargeback Management and Recover Lost Revenue

Business Wire India

Riskified (NYSE: RSKD), a leader in ecommerce fraud and risk intelligence, today announced the release of Dispute Resolve for Shopify. This specialized offering is designed to transform the often-complex, highly manual chargeback management process into a streamlined, automated engine, enabling Shopify merchants to recover revenue with greater efficiency and with less manual effort.

 

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260317398106/en/

 

Many merchants are currently forced to log into multiple payment gateway portals to view fraud and non-fraud chargebacks, manually copy/paste and organize compelling evidence, and build custom reporting to assess win-rate performance. Dispute Resolve provides a single source of truth through a real-time dashboard that automatically syncs with a wide variety of payment gateways, providing instant clarity into dispute performance and significantly improving workflows. The solution includes an AI-driven Compelling Evidence Editor that auto-populates case data into customized templates, reducing the time spent preparing a dispute from over thirty minutes to just five minutes. By moving from a passive management layer to a proactive execution engine, merchants can now submit evidence and accept chargebacks directly within the Riskified platform.

 

The launch of Dispute Resolve further strengthens the deep integration between Riskified and the Shopify ecosystem, providing a comprehensive security layer that protects every stage of the customer journey. Beyond chargeback management, the Riskified platform offers merchants a suite of solutions to secure the entire lifecycle—from account login and checkout to post-purchase claims. This includes a Chargeback Guarantee that allows merchants to safely approve more orders, alongside Policy Protect, which shields brands from the rising costs of promotion abuse, unauthorized reseller abuse, as well as refund claim and return abuse. By leveraging industry-tailored machine learning models and a vast global merchant network, Riskified helps Shopify brands scale confidently while maintaining a smarter and seamless experience for their customers.

 

Global lifestyle audio brand Skullcandy is among the many merchants already leveraging the Riskified Shopify App to drive performance. Riskified’s automated tools and recalibrated approval thresholds helped the Skullcandy team achieve a 4x increase in approved revenue while sustaining a negligible 0.06% chargeback rate over a 12-month period.

 

“We access Riskified via the Shopify app, which makes managing our fraud strategy and monitoring performance easy, and we know the Riskified support team is always there for consistent and reliable problem solving,” said Zach Belles, Director of IT at Skullcandy.

 

Read Skullcandy’s success story here.

 

Join the webinar, “Checkout to claims: How Shopify merchants stop fraud and boost revenue with Riskified,” live on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, or on demand. Learn how Riskified’s seamless integration with Shopify helps merchants increase approvals, reduce false declines, and deliver a superior customer experience, and how leading audio lifestyle brand Skullcandy transformed its fraud strategy.

 

About Riskified

 

Riskified (NYSE:RSKD) empowers businesses to unleash ecommerce growth by outsmarting risk. Many of the world’s biggest brands and publicly traded companies selling online rely on Riskified for guaranteed protection against chargebacks, to fight fraud and policy abuse at scale, and to improve customer retention. Developed and managed by the largest team of ecommerce risk analysts, data scientists, and researchers, Riskified’s AI-powered fraud and risk intelligence platform analyzes the individual behind each interaction to provide real-time decisions and robust identity-based insights. Learn more at riskified.com.

 

 

 

 

HyperLight Introduces 400G-per-lane TFLN PICs on its Chiplet™ Platform for Next-Generation AI Interconnects

Business Wire India

HyperLight Corporation (“HyperLight”), creator of the TFLN Chiplet™ Platform, today announced the availability of 400G-per-lane thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic integrated circuits (PICs) designed for next-generation AI networking infrastructure. The new PIC family delivers low insertion loss, low drive voltage operation, and exceptional electro-optic bandwidth, enabling energy-efficient and high-performance 400G-per-lane optical links.

 

The transition to 400G-per-lane is a critical step for future AI infrastructure, enabling higher interconnect bandwidth and improved system density. HyperLight’s 400G-per-lane TFLN PICs provide the large electro-optic bandwidth and low-voltage operation required to support these next-generation optical links, where bandwidth, signal integrity, and power efficiency are increasingly challenging for electronic ICs to sustain.

 

HyperLight’s TFLN devices combine high modulation efficiency with extremely low optical loss, enabling transmitter architectures powered by single- or dual-laser configurations. The devices are manufactured using HyperLight’s TFLN Chiplet™ Platform, designed for scalable production of high-performance TFLN photonic devices.

 

“400G-per-lane is a prime example of where the advantages of TFLN become clear,” said Mian Zhang, CEO of HyperLight. “While 400G-per-lane pushes the limits of many technologies from a bandwidth perspective, TFLN provides ample bandwidth margin while maintaining low drive voltage. This enables excellent manufacturability while significantly reducing module power.”

 

“As the industry moves toward the 400G-per-lane era, the performance of optical components becomes increasingly critical,” said Vijay Janapaty, Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom’s Physical Layer Products Division. “HyperLight’s high-bandwidth TFLN transmitter PIC, combined with Broadcom’s Taurus™ DSP platform, enables exceptional signal integrity and energy efficiency for next-generation optical interconnects.”

 

“HyperLight’s TFLN solution plays an important role in enabling high-performance and power-efficient 400G-per-lane optical transceivers,” said Richard Huang, CEO of Eoptolink. “The superior performance of the TFLN PIC reduces the need for dedicated external drivers, lowers laser count, and simplifies module integration — ultimately improving power efficiency, cost, and reliability.”

 

About HyperLight

 

HyperLight delivers high-performance integrated photonics solutions based on thin-film lithium niobate technology. The company combines the electro-optic advantages of TFLN with scalable manufacturing, test, and integration to enable next-generation optical engines for AI data centers, telecom and metro networks, and emerging photonics markets.

 

Website: https://www.hyperlightcorp.com

 

 

 

 

Sintavia Accelerates Design of Next Generation Heat Exchangers Powered by NVIDIA

Business Wire India

Sintavia, LLC, the world’s leading all-digital aerospace component manufacturer, announced today that it had integrated NVIDIA’s RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition to design, simulate, and validate a complex aerospace heat exchanger in only two weeks—a process that would have taken months previously. The resulting heat exchanger demonstrated a 30% reduction in weight and 20% improvement in thermal efficiency for aerospace applications, and was validated using CT scanning and in-house testing.

 

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260313654192/en/

 

 

Scooped version of representative heat exchanger (Source: Sintavia)

Scooped version of representative heat exchanger (Source: Sintavia)

 

As part of the project, Sintavia adopted a simulation-driven approach, integrating CFD in Siemens Simcenter™ STAR-CCM+™ software and implicit modeling in nTop, leveraging NVIDIA Blackwell architecture to unlock next-level performance on what has historically been a large, compute- and memory-bandwidth intensive workload. By combining all of these features, Sintavia was able to rapidly iterate its simulation without sacrificing fidelity or safety. In Sintavia’s tests, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU ran a 30 million-cell Simcenter STAR-CCM+ conjugate heat transfer simulation with over 300 iterations in just seven minutes—11x faster than on a 24-core CPU—allowing Sintavia to make near real-time adjustments to meet customer performance requirements. The result was a fully optimized heat exchanger that was printable the next day.

 

“At Sintavia, we’re not just designing heat exchangers, we’re pioneering a new era of thermal management with solutions that are lighter, stronger, and engineered for the most demanding environments,” said Jose Troitino, Principal Design Engineer at Sintavia. “Because we operate in a fully digital environment—from simulation, through manufacturing and inspection—we are always looking at faster and more efficient solutions to reduce span time at each step. We are very proud that we have been able to do so alongside NVIDIA, Siemens, and nTop.”

 

 

Additional information on the project is available at: Sintavia Aerospace Component Design with NVIDIA GPUs | NVIDIA Customer Stories.

 

 

About Sintavia

 

 

Sintavia is the world’s leading all-digital aerospace component supplier. Over the past four years, it has designed and delivered the first metal additive component on: (i) a fighter jet, (ii) a nuclear submarine, (iii) a hypersonic missile, (iv) a piloted aircraft critical safety system, and (v) a military rotorcraft. By combining a fully digital design-print-certify workstream alongside a fully digital additive manufacturing process, Sintavia is redefining the aerospace component supply landscape. For more information visit http://www.sintavia.com.

 

 

 

 

 

NetApp Unveils New High-Performance EF-Series Models

Business Wire India

NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced the release of the next generation of NetApp EF-Series storage systems, built to power the most performance‑intensive workloads at scale. The introduction of EF50 and EF80 helps enterprises and neoclouds meet the growing demands of AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and transactional databases, including in emerging use cases like sovereign AI clouds and AI-powered manufacturing.

 

“Data is the key component to delivering business value for enterprises, underpinning performance-hungry workloads like AI or databases,” said Sandeep Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Storage at NetApp. “As businesses contend with ever-increasing data volumes and performance-intensive applications such as AI model training, AI inferencing and high-performance computing, they need infrastructure that delivers speed, scalability and efficiency without added complexity. NetApp delivers a comprehensive portfolio that addresses every stage of the AI data pipeline from collecting and preparing data to feeding it to GenAI models that produce business insights. With the new EF-Series systems, purpose-built for extreme performance, we’re enabling customers to deploy and scale high-throughput, low-latency workloads quickly and efficiently, while reducing data center footprint and operational overhead.”

 

 

Coupled with high-performance parallel file systems like Lustre or BeeGFS, the new EF50 and EF80 systems accelerate HPC simulations and keep GPUs fully utilized with high-performance scratch space, helping organizations unlock new value and competitive advantage at the right price. Customers ranging from neocloud providers driving AI innovation to movie studios managing massive media libraries will benefit from not only performance and scalability but also robust security measures to safeguard sensitive information and prevent data loss.

 

 

The new EF-Series storage systems deliver over 110GBps of read throughput and 55GBps of write throughput, a 250 percent improvement over previous generations. With a power efficiency of 63.7GBps per KW and 1.5PB of storage in 2U, the new systems ensure reliable, high-performance with efficient rack density and an affordable cost. With EF-Series, organizations can:

 

 

  • Achieve high performance for data-intensive workloads, scaling capacity without sacrificing efficiency or latency
  • Balance budget requirements with high-performance needs to make better decisions faster
  • Simplify management and operational complexity with affordable block storage, streamlined deployment and support from NetApp’s technical experts.

 

 

“As we navigate the AI era, many enterprises are finding that they need to maximize their raw performance to extract the most value from their data,” said Clayton Vipond, Senior Solution Architect at CDW. “The refreshed NetApp EF-Series deliver the throughput and capacity businesses need to scale high-powered workloads that transform data into insights and outcomes.”

 

“NetApp’s EF-Series systems give Teradata the storage performance needed to support our most demanding workloads,” said Sumeet Arora, Chief Product Officer, Teradata. “We appreciate that NetApp continues to invest in this technology, and with the enhanced performance of the new models, we look forward to exploring opportunities to reduce infrastructure complexity and support the AI and data modernization initiatives our customers care about.”

 

 

“By delivering a high-performance storage system that supports parallel file systems like Lustre and BeeGFS, NetApp is making its mark as emerging industries, such as neocloud, emerge to support the AI-Era,” said Simon Robinson, Principal Analyst at Omdia. “Our research validates that AI workloads require a level of raw performance unmatched by any mainstream business workload to date. With the new EF-series systems, NetApp is delivering a solution that addresses the performance needs of large-scale AI projects, whether model training or inference.”

 

 

The updated EF-Series builds on decades of durability and reliability from NetApp. With more than 1 million installations, it has a proven track record that customers can rely on.

 

 

Additional Resources

 

 

 

 

About NetApp

 

For more than three decades, NetApp has helped the world’s leading organizations navigate change – from the rise of enterprise storage to the intelligent era defined by data and AI. Today, NetApp is the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, helping customers turn data into a catalyst for innovation, resilience, and growth.

 

 

At the heart of that infrastructure is the NetApp data platform – the unified, enterprise-grade, intelligent foundation that connects, protects, and activates data across every cloud, workload, and environment. Built on the proven power of NetApp ONTAP, our leading data management software and OS, and enhanced by automation through the AI Data Engine and AFX, it delivers observability, resilience, and intelligence at scale.

 

 

Disaggregated by design, the NetApp data platform separates storage, services, and control so enterprises can modernize faster, scale efficiently, and innovate without lock-in. As the only enterprise storage platform natively embedded in the world’s largest clouds, it gives organizations the freedom to run any workload anywhere with consistent performance, governance, and protection.

 

 

With NetApp, data is always ready – ready to defend against threats, ready to power AI, and ready to drive the next breakthrough. That’s why the world’s most forward-thinking enterprises trust NetApp to turn intelligence into advantage.

 

 

Learn more at www.netapp.com or follow us on X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

 

 

NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed at www.netapp.com/TM are trademarks of NetApp, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

 

 

 

 

 

TECNO Launches #TECNOGotYourBack, Becomes the Backbone of Chennai Super Kings as First Proof Point

Business Wire India

In an industry often focused on what’s in front of the camera, TECNO is turning the spotlight to what stands quietly behind the scenes. Today, the innovative smartphone brand announced the launch of #TECNOGotYourBack, a long-term brand platform that celebrates the resilience, support systems and everyday ‘backbones’ powering India’s progress.

To bring this narrative to life, TECNO has chosen the biggest stage in India: the cricket crease. In a purposeful branding move, the TECNO logo will feature on the back of the helmets of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) throughout the 2026 season.

This goes beyond a traditional sponsorship; it is a reflection of a core mission. TECNO’s mission is to back town dreamers and CSK is a team famously built on the backs of those who made it against the odds – from Sanju Samson in Vizhinjam and Dhoni from Ranchi to Ruturaj from Nagpur.

By backing CSK, TECNO is simply living its mission: supporting those who started small and made it exciting. When TECNO stands behind the team, it sends a clear message to 200 million Indian families: “We back dreamers like you, and we’ve got your back.”

Reflecting on how this partnership aligns with the brand’s deeper purpose, Mr. Arijeet Talapatra, CEO, TECNO Mobile India, shared the vision driving this collaboration: “Most brands want to be the trophy in your hand. We want to be the spine that helps you stand tall enough to reach for it. #TECNOGotYourBack isn’t just a campaign; it’s our commitment to being the ‘Backbone of Bharat.’ By placing our logo on the back of the CSK helmet, we are making a statement: we aren’t just watching the game from the sidelines – we are right there, literally backing the champions who inspire this country. We are building a brand that stands for local champions, ensuring that when they push boundaries, they know TECNO has their back.”

“At Chennai Super Kings, we have always believed that success is built on trust, resilience and the strength of the people who stand behind you. This partnership with TECNO reflects that shared philosophy. We are delighted to welcome TECNO to the Super Kings family and look forward to a meaningful association that celebrates the spirit of backing champions, both on and off the field,” said KS Viswanathan, Managing Director, Chennai Super Kings.

The partnership with CSK serves as the first proof point of this reimagined brand purpose. The “Helmet Strategy” highlights a simple human truth: every champion has a support system that often goes unseen. By claiming the back-of-the-helmet real estate, TECNO transforms a branding slot into a conversation about loyalty and reliability.

As the tournament progresses, #TECNOGotYourBack will expand beyond the pitch, focusing on the “backbones” of Indian society – the dreamers, the entrepreneurs and the everyday heroes who keep the country moving forward.

Smartly Signs Letter of Intent to Acquire INCRMNTAL

Business Wire India

Smartly today announced it has entered into a letter of intent to acquire INCRMNTAL, a pioneering AI-powered incrementality measurement platform that delivers real-time insights into the incremental impact of marketing investments across channels without relying on user-level data or tracking.

 

As brands activate across social, commerce, and premium CTV, understanding what actually drives incremental growth has become increasingly complex. By combining INCRMNTAL’s real-time incrementality insights with Smartly’s platform that enables advertisers to turn insights into action across channels, marketers can continuously direct investment to what drives business outcomes. The integration will translate incrementality signals into real-time planning and optimization within Smartly, helping brands and agencies allocate budgets with greater confidence.

 

“Marketing leaders today are demanding better measurement for performance and accountability,” said Laura Desmond, CEO of Smartly. “Incrementality is becoming increasingly important in a world where traditional approaches are challenged to move at the speed of AI and the changing consumer journey. With INCRMNTAL, Smartly enables marketers to connect what’s happening in their business outcomes in real time with how they optimize media, creative, and campaigns, so they can see performance as it happens and take immediate action.”

 

INCRMNTAL’s AI-powered always-on methodology analyzes natural fluctuations in campaign activity instead of forcing marketers to exclude audiences, pause campaigns, or run formal experiments. The solution complements marketers’ existing measurement tools, including marketing mix modeling (MMM) and multi-touch attribution (MTA).

 

With this acquisition, Smartly will reinforce its position as the platform that connects creative, media, and intelligence, helping marketers orchestrate performance with confidence.

 

About Smartly
Smartly is the AI-powered advertising technology company ranked as the leader in The Forrester Wave™: Creative Advertising Technologies. Our platform unifies creative and media to produce intelligent creative, dynamic, data-driven image and video assets optimized for seamless activation across channels. Brands manage, optimize, and scale high-performance campaigns in one place, achieving PwC-validated results, including a 5.5x return on ad spend (ROAS) and 42 minutes saved every hour.

 

We support 800+ brands and manage over $7 billion in ad spend globally. With strategic partnerships across major media platforms, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Pinterest, Reddit, Snap, Spotify, and TikTok, we help Fortune 500 companies deliver relevant advertising at speed and scale. Backed by deep media expertise and best-in-class customer support, we empower brands to maximize performance and drive real business outcomes. Visit Smartly.io to learn more.

 

About INCRMNTAL
INCRMNTAL is an AI-powered marketing measurement platform that delivers actionable incrementality measurement for advertising campaigns. The platform provides always-on insights without relying on user-level data or planned experiments, using technological innovation, reinforcement learning, and causal AI to reveal the true impact of marketing across Mobile, Web, TV & CTV, Influencers, OOH & DOOH, Audio, and Podcasts.
Learn more at www.incrmntal.com