Runtime | Indian Tech News | Wednesday, August 20th, 2025

Welcome to Runtime’s daily Indian tech news roundup, hosted by Caleb Friesen. Today, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Go launch in India is hit by a Stripe UPI outage, Dhruv Rathee’s AI Fiesta faces hacking attempts and credibility issues, Pune-based Astrophel Aerospace signs an MoU with IN-SPACe to access ISRO facilities, Vishal Tejwani ships placestation PCB machines internationally, and AltSpace AI Residency startups prepare to showcase their projects at Demo Day.

0:00 ChatGPT Go Stripe UPI Outage
1:23 AI Fiesta Situation Devolves
4:59 Astrophel Aerospace Signs MoU With IN-SPACe
5:49 Vishal Tejwani Sells placestation Globally
6:46 AltSpace AI Residency Startups

ChatGPT Go Stripe UPI Outage

OpenAI’s rollout of ChatGPT Go in India hit a major roadblock after Stripe faced issues with UPI payments. OpenAI announced on its help page that UPI payments were temporarily unavailable and would be restored within 12–24 hours. This outage came just hours after OpenAI had celebrated the launch of UPI support and INR pricing for ChatGPT Go in India. Arti Singh at The Head and Tale first reported the story, which was supposed to be a big milestone in OpenAI’s India strategy. Sam Altman even appeared on a podcast with Nikhil Kamath to highlight the push, but Stripe’s breakdown left OpenAI exposed. Anmol Maini, General Partner at Untitled Ventures, said OpenAI should have chosen Razorpay over Stripe. With India now OpenAI’s second-largest market after the United States, the volume of new subscriptions through UPI may have contributed to the outage.

AI Fiesta Situation Devolves

The controversy around Dhruv Rathee’s AI Fiesta is escalating. Niladri, creator of Open Fiesta, released a video on X claiming that AI Fiesta falsely advertises GPT-5 while actually using GPT-4, and labels Claude 3.5 Sonnet as Sonnet 4. Security researcher Harkirat Singh also revealed that AI Fiesta relies heavily on Supabase with minimal backend security, allowing users to exploit weaknesses. A Chrome extension called AI Fiesta Unlimited now enables free unlimited usage by blocking certain network requests. Users can also change request payloads to unlock premium models without paying because the backend does not properly verify entitlements. Ankit, known for exposing vulnerabilities at BYJU’s during the WhiteHat Jr Pradeep Poonia case, criticized Dhruv Rathee for not incorporating an Indian large language model such as Sarvam into AI Fiesta. The platform is now facing both credibility issues and widespread attempts at hacking.

Astrophel Aerospace Signs MoU With IN-SPACe

Pune-based spacetech startup Astrophel Aerospace has signed a framework memorandum of understanding with IN-SPACe to gain access to ISRO’s facilities. Astrophel Aerospace will use these facilities for technical reviews, system-level testing, and qualification support for its semi-cryogenic propulsion systems. The startup will also collaborate with ISRO experts for additional design validation and testing. Astrophel Aerospace is building Astra, a two-stage launch vehicle with an optional kick stage powered by nine in-house engines. In August 2023, Astrophel Aerospace became one of the few private Indian companies to independently develop and test-fire a semi-cryogenic engine, named Potentia, without any external funding.

Vishal Tejwani Sells placestation Globally

Hardware founder Vishal Tejwani, creator of placestation and BuildASAP Smarthomes, has shipped his first international order. Placestation is a pick-and-place machine that automates PCB assembly. For Indian companies, PCB production has usually meant outsourcing to China, but placestation makes fast, local assembly possible. Vishal Tejwani also plans to expand with automation for solder paste stenciling and automated reflow ovens. His vision is to create an end-to-end PCB assembly factory that could one day operate from a small office or even a living room.

AltSpace AI Residency Startups

The AltSpace AI Residency in the Himalayas will host its Demo Day Investor Showcase on August 22, 2025. Several AI startups are preparing to present:
– Mixio Pro, offering AI-powered photoshoots for fashion and jewellery brands
– Monade AI, providing AI voice and text agents for sales teams across multiple channels
– Dictation Daddy, transcribing speech into apps like Slack, WhatsApp, and email with clean formatting
– SpecterFi, an AI co-pilot for Indian investors offering research, summaries, and real-time alerts
– Visble AI, building an Answer Engine Optimization platform to boost visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI assistants
– BugOwl AI, delivering no-code UI automation testing for web and mobile
– Widushi, an AI-native layer for scalable handwritten answer evaluation for exams such as UPSC and bar exams
– ChatifyGPT, enabling smart AI chatbots for online stores on Wix and Shopify

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