The Arc Web

Groww turns to IPOs, wealth as derivatives engine slows

2026-10-15 00:30:00.0

Wealthtech platform Groww is leaning on IPO-related income, margin funding and its fast-growing wealth business to sustain growth as regulatory changes weigh on equity derivatives. The Bengaluru-based company closed the September quarter with total income of around Rs 1,545 crore, up 44% from Rs 1,071 crore a year earlier. Profit after tax (PAT) grew 54% YoY to Rs 725 crore. Revenue and profits, however, remained broadly flat sequentially. IPOs feed the customer funnel: A busy primary market helped Groww acquire customers and generate additional income during the quarter. The company added 11 lakh new-to-universe clients, driven largely by IPO activity. Around 42 lakh users applied for equity IPOs through Groww, giving the platform a 22% share of total allotments. IPO-related income is also becoming more meaningful. It is recorded under “other operating income”, along with income from Groww’s wealth business, primarily MF Prime. The category’s share of overall revenue increased to 4.8%, from about 2% a year earlier. Wealth and MTF gather scale: Groww’s management described wealth as one of its fastest-growing businesses and disclosed for the first time that the platform had crossed Rs 10,000 crore in assets under management. Separately, Groww Asset Management’s AUM reached Rs 7,179 crore, more than doubling over the past year. The two businesses give Groww a way to earn from customer assets rather than depending only on trading activity. Margin trading facility, or MTF, is also emerging as a cornerstone of Groww’s diversification strategy. Under MTF, Groww funds part of a customer’s stock purchase and earns interest on the amount financed. Its MTF book grew to Rs 4,351 crore during the September quarter. The business generated more than Rs 150 crore in quarterly revenue and contributed 10% of Groww’s overall revenue. Derivatives feel the regulatory impact: Groww’s core equity derivatives business, covering futures and options trading, came under pressure during the quarter. Revenue from the segment declined 14.3% sequentially following Sebi’s introduction of the Closing Auction Session. The development reinforces Groww’s need to build businesses that are less dependent on trading volumes and regulatory changes. Among its newer bets, Groww’s US stock-trading platform remains at an early stage. Its product for power traders, 915, has also yet to gain significant traction. Chief financial officer Ishan Bansal said the company was still working towards finding product-market fit, and the platform was not contributing meaningfully to revenue. AI costs rise: Groww’s expenses increased 28.7% to Rs 556 crore, with spending on artificial intelligence contributing to the rise. AI-related costs increased by about Rs 13 crore during the quarter. Chief executive Lalit Keshre said Groww was building an in-house AI stack that could reduce its dependence on commercial models and lower spending on tokens. Groww is also engaging with the National Payments Corporation of India over the proposed introduction of merchant discount rates on UPI transactions above Rs 300. Bansal said the cost could not be passed on to retail investors or absorbed by asset-management companies and needed to be reconsidered. NPCI has deferred the implementation of MDR until after Diwali. Derivatives remain central to Groww. But IPO distribution, wealth management and MTF are beginning to give it more ways to acquire customers and earn from them.

Can Dezerv scale wealth management for India’s newly rich?

2026-10-14 13:30:00.0

Wealth-management startup Dezerv is targeting first-generation wealthy Indians with over Rs 50 lakh in investible assets through its portfolio management services (PMS) offering. Its average customer invests about Rs 2 crore. Serving this segment is expensive and difficult to scale through digital acquisition alone. Wealthtech companies can spend up to Rs 2 lakh to acquire a client, while Dezerv relies on relationship managers to bring in and manage customers. That may limit the pace at which customer numbers can grow compared with stockbroking platforms. Retention therefore counts for more in the economics of the business. Dezerv says its asset retention rate is around 130%, meaning existing customers collectively increase the assets they keep with the platform by 30% each year. This allows part of its asset growth to come from existing clients rather than entirely from new customer acquisition. Dezerv’s PMS offering is focused mostly on mutual funds. The platform also lists alternative investment funds and real-estate investments, among other financial products. Ionic Wealth, Neo Asset Management and Centricity are among its main competitors. Co-founder Sandeep Jethwani told The Arc that Sebi’s proposed overhaul of PMS regulations could expand the market through new products, revised minimum investment thresholds and new categories of customers. Jethwani started the company with Vaibhav Porwal and Sahil Contractor. All three are former IIFL Wealth executives. The startup has raised $100 million in venture funding from Premji Invest, Elevation Capital and Accel, among others, and it was last valued at around $298 million, as per Tracxn data.

Will PB Fintech’s healthcare push help Policybazaar?

2026-10-09 09:16:00.0

PB Fintech’s healthcare unit, PB Health, has set up two hospitals in Delhi-NCR and is partnering with select operators to build a larger network of medical facilities under the PB Care Plus brand. PB Health reportedly plans to invest Rs 10,000 crore to create this ecosystem over the next few years. An early aim is to hit an annual revenue run rate of around Rs 500 crore and break even by March 2027, group CEO and co-founder Yashish Dahiya told analysts recently. The healthcare push is expected to complement PB Fintech’s core business, insurance platform Policybazaar. Customers who buy insurance on Policybazaar could also use PB Health hospitals and affiliated facilities, giving the company a presence in both insurance distribution and the healthcare services against which claims are ultimately made. This bet is unfolding just as PB Fintech’s insurance distribution business under Policybazaar faces a new regulatory challenge. The IRDAI’s proposed changes to broker commissions could put pressure on this profitable unit’s economics. Some industry executives believe that PB Fintech may feel compelled to prioritise its core insurance business and scale back investments in other, longer-term initiatives. Regulation is only one uncertainty. Hospitals are capital-intensive businesses, and PB Health will have to compete with corporate hospital chains while attracting good doctors and maintaining the quality of treatment.

RBI opens AA network, but incumbents keep the pipes

2026-10-08 14:00:00.0

The Reserve Bank of India’s decision to introduce interoperability among account aggregators could remove one of the biggest barriers facing newer entrants. But it may not significantly weaken the position of the industry’s largest players. The central bank said in its monetary policy statement on Tuesday that it would enable interoperability across the account aggregator ecosystem, addressing a long-standing industry demand. Account aggregators, or AAs, act as consent managers. They allow customers to share financial information held by banks and other institutions with lenders, wealth-management platforms and other financial-service providers. For example, a lender seeking access to a customer’s bank statements makes the request as a financial information user, or FIU. The bank holding those records is the financial information provider, or FIP. An AA facilitates the transfer after receiving the customer’s consent. The problem is that every AA has so far needed to integrate separately with every bank or FIP. Early movers keep their edge: The aggregators that received licences early managed to connect with most large banks, giving them a significant head start. Large banks typically work with four or five established AAs, including Perfios, Finvu, OneMoney and NESL Asset Data. The RBI has licensed around 16 account aggregators. But newer entrants have struggled to persuade large banks to build additional integrations, restricting the data they can offer and making it difficult to compete with incumbents. Interoperability is intended to solve this problem. A smaller AA that lacks a direct connection with a particular bank should be able to access data through another aggregator that already has the integration. PhonePe, a newer entrant into the space, had surrendered the AA licence in February 2025, mostly as the business failed to pick pace. However, the network will not operate through Sahamati, the industry alliance for the AA ecosystem, as some participants had initially expected. Sahamati had proposed an interoperable network called Sahamati Net. Under that model, a bank’s integration with one AA could potentially make it accessible to all other participating aggregators through a common network. Instead, the RBI-backed arrangement is expected to enable direct interoperability between AAs, according to BG Mahesh, chief executive of Sahamati. The aggregators will communicate with one another and negotiate the commercial terms for facilitating access. Wider access, but at a price: That distinction matters because the largest AAs will continue to control their existing relationships and technical integrations with banks. Smaller aggregators may gain access, but they could have to pay the incumbent facilitating each data request. “The domination of the large players will continue. They will get a share of the revenue for each data pull from these large FIPs,” said a senior industry executive, requesting anonymity. The final economics have not yet been determined. Mahesh said account aggregators would need to work out the financial arrangements among themselves. Even so, interoperability should reduce the disadvantage faced by smaller players by giving them access to a wider pool of financial information. Newer AAs would no longer need to wait for every large bank to integrate with them. The arrangement could therefore widen access without necessarily redistributing market power. Established players may continue to control the most valuable connections while earning additional revenue by allowing other AAs to use them. Bringing banks into the economics: Another proposal under consideration could give banks a more direct financial incentive to participate in the ecosystem. FIPs may receive a share of the revenue each time they provide customer data to an FIU, another senior industry executive told The Arc. Such an arrangement could make participation more attractive for large banks, which bear the cost of maintaining integrations and hold most of the financial data moving through the network. The AA ecosystem is already reaching a meaningful scale. According to Sahamati, it processed around 18.5 million consent requests in September, with 177 live FIPs and 631 operational FIUs. Lending remains its most important use case. Account aggregators facilitated Rs 38,100 crore in personal and consumer-durable loan disbursements, while unsecured business loans accounted for another Rs 4,500 crore. Interoperability could accelerate adoption by making more customer data accessible across the ecosystem. But the way it is being implemented means the early movers may continue to control the most valuable connections and earn from allowing others to use them.

The economics behind Yulu’s fleet expansion

2026-10-07 02:35:00.0

Micro-mobility platform Yulu, which rents lightweight e-scooters to mainly gig workers, expects to break even at the EBIT level by the end of 2027, even as it prepares to sharply expand its fleet. The Bengaluru-based company operates around 50,000 scooters and its fleet will have 100,000 EVs by August 2027. It expects to add nearly 8,000 vehicles a month from the next quarter and 10,000-11,000 a month three quarters later. EBIT, i.e. earnings before interest and tax, is an important profitability measure for Yulu because its electric vehicles are its main revenue-generating assets. Unlike EBITDA, EBIT accounts for depreciation, or the reduction in the value of the vehicles as they age. Reaching EBIT breakeven would mean Yulu is covering both its regular operating costs and the depreciation of the fleet. Yulu turned EBITDA-positive in April 2025. Its revenue jumped from Rs 123 crore in FY24 to Rs 242 crore in FY25, while its net loss decreased from Rs 143 crore to Rs 126 crore. The company raised $93 million in a Series C round led by GEF Capital in August 2026 to scale its fleet and service hubs. So far, it has funded most of its e-scooter fleet through equity, with debt accounting for only about a fifth of its capital. It plans to increase the share of debt to half of its capital initially, before relying more heavily on debt over time. Bajaj Auto owns 13% of Yulu, while Canadian auto-parts supplier Magna holds 14%. Both groups have strategic roles that go beyond their shareholdings: Bajaj manufactures Yulu’s custom-designed scooters, and Magna is its partner in a battery-swapping JV, Yuma, set up in 2022. Yuma also serves other clients. Originally, Yulu was built mostly around short-duration scooter rentals for city commuters. Covid-19 pushed it towards longer-term rentals for gig workers, who now form the core of its business. The new business model depends on keeping vehicles in use across delivery and mobility platforms, supported by local centres for rider onboarding, maintenance and battery swapping.

Moneyview IPO tests fintech co-lending premium

2026-09-28 23:30:00.0

Moneyview significantly reduced the size of its IPO before launch and that helped the firm get a strong response from public market investors. The IPO comprised Rs 750 crore through a fresh issue instead of Rs 1,500 crore planned previously, alongside an offer for sale of 100 million shares, reduced by 26%. With its IPO oversubscribed the company has managed to achieve its target of raising around Rs 1,092 crore. At the upper end of the price band, it will be valued at about Rs 5,984 crore, over 40% below its peak private-market valuation of Rs 10,200 crore. Moneyview IPO closed today. Overall the issue was subscribed 98 times, retail portion was subscribed 19 times, qualified institutional buyers subscribed more than 227 times and non-institutional investors subscribed 115 times. Update on October 1: Moneyview got listed in the Indian stock exchanges today. The stock price opened at Rs 55.6, up 63% with respect to the issue price of Rs 34. The stock reached an intra-day high of Rs 62 on the BSE and eventually closed at Rs 53. At the end of day's trading the market capitalisation stood at Rs 9,339 crore. Unlike consumer lenders that rely largely on their own balance sheets, Moneyview primarily sources and services borrowers for banks and NBFCs. Around 75% of its Rs 22,520 crore assets under management is off its balance sheet. The model helped Moneyview command a technology premium in private funding rounds led by investors including Tiger Global (14% stake) and Accel (22% stake). Public-market investors, however, appear to be valuing it closer to a conventional lender. Moneyview will trade at 24.7 times its FY26 profit at the upper end of the price band. That is close to Kissht’s current multiple of about 25 times, despite Moneyview managing more than twice the AUM. Moneyview’s annualised return on equity (RoE) improved to around 20% in FY26 from about 13% a year earlier. Kissht reported an annualised RoE of around 23% for the first nine months of FY26 before its IPO in May. Before the IPO, Moneyview awarded cofounder Puneet Agarwal a bonus of Rs 160 crore. Agarwal told analysts that the payout reflected past performance and would not be recurring. The founder signal contrasts with Kissht, where cofounders Ranvir Singh and Krishnan Vishwanathan bought shares worth Rs 40 crore in a secondary transaction shortly before its IPO.

Policybazaar braces for 40% hit to business as IRDAI proposes commission caps, brokers’ stock price tumbles

2026-09-25 02:30:00.0

Policybazaar, the country’s largest insurance broker, is staring at a potential 33-40% impact on its general insurance distribution revenue if the insurance regulator’s proposed commission caps come into force. Addressing stock market analysts, Yashish Dahiya, group chairman of PB Fintech, said the company may not face a severe impact on the life insurance side of the business, but the general insurance business is likely to face major headwinds. The proposed changes in insurance commissions triggered a sharp sell-off in insurance distribution stocks. PB Fintech shares fell nearly 36%, while Turtlemint, another listed insurance broker, fell 20%. Business impact: While the distribution business is expected to face significant headwinds, Policybazaar will actively evaluate alternative opportunities across the insurance value chain to protect profitability. Insurance manufacturing, reinsurance and the managed general insurance (MGA) business are three areas that PB Fintech plans to evaluate, Dahiya said. In June, speaking to The Economic Times, Dahiya had said that capping insurance distribution commissions could pose an existential threat to the sector. He had also said that Policybazaar planned to apply for an MGA licence once the regulator opened the framework to the sector. The Union government amended the Insurance Act in 2025 to enable the formation of MGAs as a new participant in the insurance sector. Dahiya said PB Fintech will approach the regulator to seek clarity on enabling provisions for MGAs, allowing companies such as Policybazaar to apply for a licence and set up the business. “Policybazaar has operated as a distributor for years. Becoming a manufacturer is a very different ball game, so it cannot become an instant switch. It will take time,” said the chief executive officer of another insurance company on condition of anonymity. Some industry executives believe that, given PB Fintech’s scale, the company could eventually move into insurance manufacturing and compete with players such as Go Digit and Acko. Regulator speak: While there had been considerable industry speculation that IRDAI was considering caps on insurance commissions, the breadth of the proposed changes caught the industry by surprise. IRDAI is proposing a significant tightening of insurers’ Expenses of Management (EoM). For life insurers, the regulator has proposed bringing EoM down to 15% of gross direct premium income within two years and 12.5% within five years. For general insurers, the proposed EoM limit would move to 25% within two years and 20% within five years. Conserve cash: Policybazaar is likely to move into a cash-conservation mode as it prepares for a sharp reduction in commissions and payouts. Alok Bansal, executive vice chairman of PB Fintech, said the proposed IRDAI rules, once finalised, would kick in only from April next year, meaning the company’s FY27 guidance and financial performance should remain on track. Dahiya also emphasised building employee vintage rather than expanding teams aggressively to grow the market. Policybazaar gets 80% of its business from 50% of its sales employees. Going forward, the company will be more judicious in hiring and focus on retaining and scaling high-performing sales executives. Dark patterns and fair-trade practices: One of the major points of disagreement between PB Fintech and IRDAI’s consultation paper relates to the proposed restrictions on so-called dark patterns. The consultation paper proposes that distributors should not collect customer details before providing an insurance quotation. PB Fintech management, however, said a serious quotation cannot be generated without a customer’s mobile number and other details. Dahiya said the company could take the matter to court if the regulator does not allow distributors to collect customer phone numbers before providing a quotation. Policybazaar uses customer contact details and other information as part of helping insurance companies underwrite the customer, including checks of social media profiles and other data points, before offering a quotation. Impact on other businesses: PB Fintech is also building businesses across healthcare, international markets and other areas, which Dahiya said would remain focus areas for the company. Dahiya said health insurance penetration in India could improve if three conditions are met: Customers provide better disclosures. Insurers build a narrower, trusted healthcare network. Customers have some skin in the game through mechanisms such as co-payments. By building PB Health and its own garage network for motor insurance customers, PB Fintech is attempting to build a bridge between insurers and customers. Dahiya reiterated that insurance penetration will improve only when customers develop greater trust in the insurance system.

Swiggy Instamart pushes own brands as fast delivery loses novelty

2026-09-24 21:25:00.0

As 15-minute delivery and large product assortments become standard in Indian quick commerce, platforms are running out of ways to tie in users. Swiggy is betting that what Instamart sells can provide the difference, driving customers to choose it over rival apps. Under a strategy called Switch, Swiggy Instamart is adding its own brands and exclusive products co-created with other companies. These products are marketed as higher-quality or better-for-you items. This is not the usual private-label model built around lower prices. For example, two Swiggy-owned brands, Noice and Nectr, sit slightly above the mass market and sell on quality. The company believes customers will pay a little extra if the product feels sufficiently premium. Private labels have already become a key part of Instamart. Around the time of Swiggy’s IPO in 2024, analysts and company insiders estimated that they accounted for 4-5% of gross order value. That share has since increased to 8-9%, said people familiar with the business. Instamart’s GOV, meanwhile, grew from Rs 8,069 crore in FY24 to Rs 28,496 crore in FY26. Swiggy says customers who buy its in-house brands behave differently from the average Instamart user. Nine million customers have bought Noice, a packaged-food range with over 400 SKUs across over 45 categories. They order 50% more often and have a retention rate that is 10 percentage points higher. One in every 10 Instamart orders now includes a Noice product. Nectr, a fruit-and-vegetable line, is earlier in the cycle. It is being tested in a few Bengaluru areas and is priced 10-15% above prevailing market rates. Customers who have tried it spend 10% more on the category and show a retention rate 12 percentage points higher. Swiggy often tests new categories in Bengaluru before taking them elsewhere. Products that work are introduced in other markets and adapted to regional tastes. The Switch strategy is taking shape as Instamart itself becomes much larger. The service operates over 1,200 dark stores across over 130 cities and has 14 million monthly transacting users. Its assortment has expanded from 8,000-9,000 SKUs to 50,000 in less than two years. Rivals are moving in a similar direction. Zepto is preparing Select, Blinkit has launched Gourmet and Bengaluru-based FirstClub is built around premium and differentiated products. All three approaches emerged within roughly three months. Swiggy’s execution differs. After experimenting earlier with standalone apps, it is keeping the new proposition inside Instamart through Switch. There is room for private labels to become much bigger in quick commerce. For example, in-house brands contribute nearly 33% of revenue at Tata Digital-owned BigBasket. Swiggy already has experience with a more traditional private-label business. Supreme Harvest, its oldest own brand, sells packaged staples including pulses, oils, spices and dry fruits.

WhatsApp India eyes consumer credit under Kunal Shah

2026-09-23 01:43:00.0

WhatsApp India is stepping up its focus on commerce and financial services in India, as Meta looks to build more businesses around the messaging app. Digital payments are a work in progress. WhatsApp India has a huge messaging user base, but at around 160 million transactions a month, it accounts for only a small slice of the payments market. The appointment of Cred founder Kunal Shah as WhatsApp’s global chief executive has raised expectations in the Indian fintech industry that Meta will try to get more out of that distribution. People familiar with the matter told The Arc that WhatsApp is evaluating a role in loan distribution by helping lenders find borrowers. They added that such plans are still in early stages and the final contours of these developments are still in works, but some early conversations have happened already. The aim is to get Indian consumers to use WhatsApp for more financial services, not just payments. The question is whether they will. India has not developed into a super-app market, so WhatsApp’s scale in messaging may not automatically carry over elsewhere.

UPI MDR could upend lending, wealth-tech economics

2026-09-19 14:15:00.0

After the final notifications on charges around Unified Payments Interface (UPI) have been released, the second-order impacts of the move are increasingly coming to the fore. Fintech founders across multiple industry segments, including lending, wealthtech and others, are estimating the possible hit to their businesses as they factor in the 0.4% MDR into their calculations. The National Payments Corporation of India announced a 0.4% MDR on UPI payments above Rs 2,000. While small merchants who receive less than Rs 1 lakh a month through UPI will be exempted from this charge, everyone else will have to bear this cost. NPCI has created certain categories where charges are flat or lower like for billers, but many of the other industries are trying to figure out if they can actually absorb the charge, given the margins they operate in. Some business arrangements might need to be redrawn as the second-order impact of MDR starts playing out, some founders said. Lending margins may take a hit: One of the major impacts could be in the loan repayments space, where UPI is used extensively, especially by fintechs that offer small-ticket loans to consumers. According to data from the NPCI, more than Rs 70,000 crore is processed by debt-collection agencies every month. In terms of transaction volumes, it hovers around 200-220 million monthly transactions. This segment accounts for some of the highest-value UPI payments, after groceries and supermarkets, which largely comprise essential consumption. “A Rs 5 flat fee as suggested by NPCI on these payments is big, it could have a major impact on link-based collections where customer prefers to pay via UPI...given the margin on these repayments is low, it could have an impact on the math around collections against small-ticket loans,” said a founder of a digital lending startup on the condition of anonymity. Digital lenders typically process monthly repayments in the range of Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000. Most repayments are processed via UPI Autopay, where the borrower repays through a standing instruction. There is no MDR on such transactions. The charges are set to come into effect when a lender processes a payment through a transaction link. Typically, this happens when the borrower is paying late. The industry is also seeking clarity around manual EMI repayments done via UPI. “The flat fee is applicable for collections received through UPI onboarded under the ‘Debt Collection’ category, but manual or one-off EMI repayment by the borrower through UPI for an amount above Rs 2,000, may attract MDR,” said another senior fintech industry executive. At 0.4% MDR this could become a point of concern for the sector, where such costs were not built in initially. Lack of clarity for businesses: In the bill discounting ecosystem, there could be a second-order impact playing out as well, said industry insiders. A founder of an invoice discounting startup said the 40 basis points hit through UPI MDR will either shrink margins for lenders or increase the cost burden on merchants in one way or another. “There is still a lack of clarity on UPI payments made by one business entity to another. Small businesses use UPI extensively to pay their vendors and distributors, so how such payments get charged remains unclear,” he said. He further added that merchants might start using multiple QR codes to ensure they remain within the Rs 1 lakh per month threshold and avoid paying MDR. While this will not impact the digital payments agenda of the country, it could end up fragmenting UPI payments data, he explained. Multiple small-business lenders use this data set to underwrite unorganised businesses and offer term loans for business growth. The broader fact remains that UPI, over the last few years, has entered deep into the business cycles of all forms of businesses, across retail, wholesale, fintech, consumer tech and others. Business models were structured on the assumption that there would be no cost associated with accepting payments, given that, on average, more than 70% of payments would be made via UPI. Now, a lot of those business use cases will need to be relooked. Multiple industry insiders told The Arc that every subsegment of the fintech sector is looking closely at its businesses and figuring out how it might take the hit and how the cost can be absorbed. Passing on MDR to the consumer is not allowed by law, so businesses will have to find ways to absorb it or distribute the cost among multiple parties so that no one party gets significantly impacted. One interesting case has played out in the stock broking ecosystem, where investors might park money in brokerage accounts but not trade. As Nithin Kamath of Zerodha pointed out, it will be a cost for the broker even when the platform does not earn any brokerage if the trader does not transact. “While there is a lot being discussed around the immediate impact of MDR and the gain for players like PhonePe, Google Pay and others, the second-order impacts will start playing out over the next few weeks,” said one of the founders quoted above.

What Activate will back in Indian AI and what it won’t

2026-09-18 14:20:00.0

AI-focused investor Activate collected $105 million in its maiden fundraising effort, which began in December 2025 and concluded recently. The capital is split across two sleeves: a core early-stage fund of $85 million and growth vehicles of $20 million. Through the core fund, Activate plans to lead or co-lead rounds in 20 to 24 early-stage companies with a median cheque of $2 million. It has made seven investments so far. The $20 million pool raised for growth bets has already been deployed in Sarvam AI, ElevenLabs and Wispr Flow. Aakrit Vaish and Pratyush Choudhury started Activate in 2025. Vaish had earlier co-founded enterprise conversational AI platform Haptik and served as an adviser on the Indian government’s IndiaAI Mission. Choudhury was an investor at Together Fund and also worked at Amazon Web Services. At $105 million, their fund is one the largest debut venture funds raised by a founding team of an entrepreneur/angel investor in India. Among early-stage Indian VCs more broadly, it matches Together’s first fund (started by Freshworks’ Girish Mathrubootham and Eka’s Manav Garg) in size but below $150 million raised last year by Northpoint Capital (started by Sameer Brij Verma, who spent 15 years at Nexus). Around 60% of the core fund’s capital comes from Indian investors and 40% from overseas backers. Institutions contributed roughly 24% of the fund, while non-institutional investors supplied the remaining 76%. Vaish said that the geographical split for the growth vehicles was the reverse. Haptik was acquired by Reliance Jio in 2019, but Vaish continued to scale the company under its new owner until 2024. Haptik closed FY26 with Rs 310 crore in revenue and Rs 36 crore in profit, making it a profitable operating business within Jio’s portfolio. Jio is expected to go public this year at a valuation of over $100 billion. Choudhury worked with Vaish on his angel investments in 2020 before joining Together, where he oversaw AI deals such as Composio and Emergent. Soaib Grewal is also on the Activate team as a partner and head of ecosystem. Grewal knew Vaish through Times Internet, which was an investor in Haptik, and later worked with him at Peercheque.

Bounce 2.0: Gig-worker scooter rentals hit Rs 140 cr run-rate

2026-09-16 01:54:00.0

Four years after shutting its scooter-sharing network for commuters, Bounce has rebuilt its business around gig workers. Under a more vertically integrated model, the company manufactures electric two-wheelers and rents them to gig workers in Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Bounce co-founder and CEO Vivekananda Hallekere told The Arc that the rental business, launched in December 2024, was running at an annualised revenue of more than Rs 140 crore. It has been profitable after tax for at least six months. The company's operating revenue for FY2026 stood at Rs 44 crore, of which scooter rentals made up 81%. Consolidated EBITDA at Rs 9.6 crore. Bounce is aiming for more than Rs 160 crore in revenue in FY27. Hallekere did not give a profit projection. In FY25, revenue was Rs 64.2 crore, down from Rs 88.7 crore a year earlier. The net loss fell from Rs 79.4 crore to Rs 28.6 crore. The rental business was only a few months old then, so it added little to the topline. Bounce has manufactured over 30,000 scooters, of which 14,000 units have been rented by gig workers. The rest have been sold to consumers and fleet operators. The company plans to expand the fleet to 1 lakh over a 24-month period. Bengaluru accounts for more than half of its rental fleet, supported by eight to ten hubs located near quick-commerce clusters. Mumbai is its most recent market. Bounce says it can put a modular scooter on the road for roughly Rs 50,000, including registration and transport but excluding the battery. It does not make batteries and instead works with swapping operators IndoFast, Sun Mobility, Honda, Reliance and Battery Smart. The rider’s daily rental is all-inclusive and covers battery swaps, with Bounce paying the swapping operators from what it collects from riders. In 2024, the company signed a $45-million agreement with Sun Mobility to deploy 30,000 scooters on the latter’s swapping network in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi-NCR. Bounce entered manufacturing by acquiring Gurugram-based 22Motors in October 2021 for a reported $7 million. 22Motors’ only factory, in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan, has capacity to produce more than 200,000 scooters a year. The company raised about $72 million in 2019 and another round in early 2020 that valued it at over $500 million. It has raised roughly $200 million in all. As the new rental model began to scale, existing investors provided additional equity and Bounce completed a pay-to-play recapitalisation. In March 2026, it allotted Rs 36 crore of shares to Accel India and B Capital in an internal round. The company said that a further Rs 10 crore from another existing investor would take the round to about Rs 46 crore.

Sparrow Capital finds a higher perch in seed investing

2026-09-11 14:04:00.0

Bengaluru-based VC firm Sparrow Capital closed its third fund at Rs 475 crore, above its initial target of Rs 400 crore, in July this year. While its first two corpuses were backed predominantly by non-institutional limited partners such as high-net-worth individuals and family offices, Fund III has also brought in global endowments and foundations, rare for Indian venture funds below Rs 500 crore in size. Sparrow plans to invest in 25-30 companies over the next three years. It will continue to invest at the seed stage without a sector-specific mandate, but with larger cheques of $1-2 million. From Fund III onwards, the firm also plans to lead and co-lead seed rounds. Fund III is a significant step up in size for Sparrow. Yash Jain, a former executive at Kalaari Capital, founded the firm in 2020 and raised Rs 4 crore for its first corpus that year. Sparrow raised around Rs 120 crore for its second fund in 2023. Its investment team has also grown. Aakash Goyal joined Sparrow in 2021 after working at Nandan Nilekani’s venture firm, Fundamentum, and in corporate development at Flipkart. Darshit Vora, who spent about a decade in venture capital at Kalaari and later Archerman Capital, is the latest addition. Jain, Goyal and Vora have structured the new fund as an equal partnership, with all three as general partners. Former KreditBee executive Arpit Agrawal has also joined the leadership team as CFO and partner. Sparrow has invested in at least 46 companies over the past six years. One of its earliest investments was in the seed round of US-based email-marketing platform Mailmodo, from which it has since exited. Its portfolio includes Aukera, HomeRun, Superhealth, Deconstruct, GoKwik, 91Trucks and StrainX Biotech.

MDR debate: Newer UPI apps may have less to gain

2026-09-09 17:33:00.0

One question is increasingly being discussed among founders in the digital payments sector: who actually benefits if merchant discount rate (MDR) returns to UPI?

PayU’s road to profitability before an IPO

2026-09-08 23:34:00.0

Prosus-owned PayU, known for processing merchant payments, has expanded its Indian business through a series of acquisitions over the past decade. Those moves have taken it into technology services for banks and lending. PayU reported Rs 249 crore in positive EBITDA on revenue of about Rs 6,700 crore in FY26 and is aiming to achieve overall profitability by the end of this financial year. Once it reaches that milestone, it may prepare for an IPO. Two acquired businesses, Wibmo and Mindgate, give PayU a key role in payment-processing technology used by banks. Wibmo provides card-payment technology, while Mindgate operates in UPI payments infrastructure. Each generates $30-35 million in annual revenue and is profitable, said people aware of the figures. PayU Finance, the company’s profitable lending arm, provides loans to merchants operating on Meesho, Swiggy and other platforms, while also offering checkout financing to consumers. PayU competes with Razorpay, Paytm and BillDesk in a payments market where the major players are increasingly diversifying.

Plazza takes an early shot at pharmacy quick commerce

2026-09-03 23:59:00.0

Fast medicine-delivery app Plazza can supply 90 of every 100 different medicines customers ask for in Bengaluru areas, giving it a 90% fill rate. Local pharmacies, by comparison, have a fill rate of 50-60%. Plazza handles around 20,000 orders monthly, up from 2,000 in December 2025. An investor put its average order value at about Rs 700. Deliveries currently take between 30 minutes and two hours. The company has only two stores in Bengaluru, limiting how close inventory is to customers, while shortages of delivery partners can stretch times further. The company wants to bring delivery times down to 15 minutes, more in line with quick commerce, as it adds more stores. It plans to expand to 10 stores in the near term, around 20 by the end of 2026 and 3,000 within three years. Management estimates that each store needs to process 600-800 orders a day to break even. Former Zomato executive Aman Priyadarshi launched Plazza in 2024. At Zomato, he led the consumer app and built the company’s food-ordering business in Istanbul, Turkey. In July 2026, Plazza raised a $15-million Series A, which was co-led by Accel, Elevation Capital and Nexus Venture Partners. Existing backers Better Capital and All In Capital also participated in the transaction.

Why Sahi isn’t trying to be the next Groww

2026-09-02 13:35:00.0

Groww, Zerodha and Angel One are among the largest stockbrokers in India, but newer platforms are trying to take share with more specialised products and trading tools. Sahi, co-founded by former Swiggy CTO Dale Vaz in 2023, is targeting active and frequent traders instead of general retail investors. Sahi has raised around $43 million in equity funding from Accel and Elevation Capital. It is now seeking another $40-50 million as it looks to roughly double its valuation within a year. The company is adding active traders at a time when multiple platforms are losing them. NSE data shows that it onboarded 27,316 active clients in July 2026. Among the platforms tracked, only Groww added users faster during the month. Sahi has also moved ahead of PhonePe’s broking app, Share.Market, on this count. Customer acquisition is only the first hurdle. About 90% of Sahi’s users come from other platforms, making retention particularly important. The larger platforms are expanding their businesses in different ways. Groww continues to scale, Zerodha is introducing more lending products, Angel One is increasing its focus on technology under CEO Ambarish Kenghe (ex-Google) and Dhan is coming up with ancillary financial services. There are around 45 million active stockbroking clients in India, as per NSE data, and over 60 million mutual fund investors.

Crane brings a build-and-back strategy to India’s AI, deeptech startups

2026-08-29 01:42:00.0

Crane Venture Partners, a London-based venture firm best known for backing companies such as British AI-chip startup Olix, valued at $3.3 bn, and cloud-infrastructure startup Ona, which was acquired by OpenAI, has launched its maiden $150-mn (Rs 1,437-cr) Asia-Pacific fund. Crane appointed Anandamoy Roychowdhary to lead the fund earlier this year. An engineer, Roychowdhary held software and technology leadership roles at Zynga and Symantec before joining Sequoia Capital India, now Peak XV Partners. He initially served as director of technology before moving into investing. At Peak XV, Roychowdhary led the firm’s first semiconductor investment in Mindgrove. He also led investments in Qure.ai, a medical-imaging AI startup, and Horizon, a quantum-computing company now listed on Nasdaq. He backed cybersecurity startups PingSafe and SquareX, which were acquired by SentinelOne and Zscaler, respectively. Roychowdhary is supported by principal Sidhant Goyal, who was previously part of Sequoia India’s early-stage investment team. Of the $150 mn raised for the Asia-Pacific region, Crane expects to deploy $100–120 mn (Rs 958–1,150 cr) in Indian deeptech and AI startups across seed to series A rounds. The allocation for India could increase. Companies that Crane helps create or incubates alongside founders could account for about a third of its India portfolio, making incubation a key part of its strategy. The firm will also invest in companies it has not incubated and lead Series A rounds. Crane’s first Indian investment was in The ePlane Company, a Chennai-based electric-aircraft maker founded by IIT Madras professor Satya Chakravarthy. Its other backers include Speciale Invest. Krishna Visvanathan and Scott Sage founded Crane in 2015. Visvanathan began his career at investment firm 3i Group in 1999 and has spent 27 years in venture capital. He later co-founded a deeptech startup and became a general partner at DFJ Esprit. Sage joined DFJ Esprit as his associate in 2010. The two have worked together for 16 years. In Europe, Crane has backed companies across cybersecurity, robotics, infrastructure software, developer tools, and AI systems. It raised $90 mn (Rs 862 cr) in 2019 and $140 mn (Rs 1,341 cr) in 2022 for its two Europe-focused funds. MassMutual Ventures is an anchor investor in Crane’s European funds and the sole limited partner in its maiden Asia-Pacific fund. As part of the arrangement, Crane is also managing MassMutual’s legacy Indian portfolio, which includes cybersecurity company CloudSEK, software-management platform Zluri, and cap-table management platform Qapita. Most of these investments were made in 2021. MassMutual Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, a 175-year-old US mutual insurer with $584 bn (Rs 55,94,720 cr) under management. It has co-anchored every Crane fund and has owned a minority stake in Crane’s management company since 2018.

Nexedge Capital secures $20mn in its first institutional round from Mirae and Elev8

2026-08-25 13:41:00.0

Wealthtech startup Nexedge Capital has secured $20 million in equity funding from Mirae Asset Venture Investment and Elev8 Partners in its first institutional funding round. Speaking with The Arc, Nexedge Capital founder Anirudha Taparia said Mirae led the round with an infusion of around $11 million, with the rest coming from Elev8 Partners. Mirae has invested in Kreditbee and Dhan, two prominent fintech startups in the digital lending and stockbroking space. Elev8 counts Snapmint, Idfy and Smallcase among its fintech portfolio. The company, founded 18 months ago, plans to use the funds to expand its scope of operations, strengthen its team and invest in the technology stack on which the platform is built. The startup joins other venture-funded wealthtech firms such as Centricity and Dezerv. It will also compete with Groww’s W, Angel One’s Ionic Wealth and other platforms that are looking to expand the scope of professional wealth management in the country. Anirudha Taparia, founder of Nexedge Capital, was previously the co-founder and joint CEO of 360 One Wealth and, prior to that, was with Citibank, where he headed private wealth in one of his last assignments. Speaking with The Arc, Taparia said the Indian economy will grow to $8 trillion over the next decade, which means more Indians will join the ranks of the wealthy, creating ample growth opportunities for firms like Nexedge. Additionally, tech IPOs, stake sales and acquisitions will unlock massive holdings for many founders and senior employees, creating a significant opportunity for wealth management firms. “We are managing an AUM of $3 billion, from some 1,300 clients. We have 100 bankers working with us already and will get another 50 or 60 coming this quarter,” Taparia told The Arc. Commenting on the competition for relationship managers in this nascent wealth space, Taparia pointed out that, unlike other wealth firms, Nexedge has brought on board bankers or relationship managers who have invested in the firm, becoming shareholders rather than salaried employees. This means they can stay invested in the firm for the next 10 years and build long-lasting relationships with their clients. Earlier this month, another wealth management startup, Centricity, announced a Rs 280 crore (around $30 million) funding round led by Japanese investor SMBC Asia, along with existing investors.

The switch: Why Navi’s UPI push is really about lending

2026-08-25 11:30:00.0

Navi is investing heavily in UPI payments to acquire customers more cheaply for lending, which is the group’s main revenue generator. The strategy depends on turning enough payment users into good-quality borrowers. Navi UPI is the fourth-largest UPI app after Paytm and processes close to 1 billion transactions a month. Monthly volumes have almost doubled over the past year, taking its market share to about 4%. For a typical tech-led NBFC, acquiring a personal-loan customer can cost Rs 1,000-1,200. Navi believes that a UPI user who receives cashbacks for several months and later converts into a borrower could cost less. The payments push followed the RBI’s rejection of Navi’s application for a private banking licence. Without access to low-cost deposits, Navi’s cost of funds is materially higher than that of banks. UPI and credit-line on UPI are intended to give it cheaper routes to larger-ticket personal-loan customers. Navi’s other financial services businesses are still small. Navi AMC has AUM of Rs 9,877 crore, modest against peers (like Rs 2.15 lakh crore for Bandhan Mutual Fund), while Navi General Insurance collected Rs 61 crore in premium between April and July 2026 (vs Rs 2,700 crore for GoDigit General Insurance in same period).

Rozana anticipates 2X revenue bump as rural commerce scales

2026-08-20 16:49:00.0

Rural ecommerce platform Rozana expects to more than double its gross revenue in FY27 from about Rs 580 crore in FY26. The company currently caters to demand from 21,000 villages across Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Over the next 12 months, it plans to enter Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. Rozana lists FMCG goods, home essentials, fashion items, personal-care products and locally sourced merchandise. It fulfils 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh orders a month with AOV of Rs 500-600. The Lucknow-based company is building a hybrid model of home delivery and physical retail. It runs 13 dark stores and 63 leased retail outlets, which double up as fulfilment centres and process orders from villages in a 25-km radius. Around 35,000 local partners help generate demand, move orders and build trust. Rozana tracks profitability at the level of administrative blocks, subdivisions of districts. About 27% of the 170 blocks where it operates are profitable, while another 30% are expected to reach profitability in the next quarter. Nationally, rural FMCG volumes grew 7.7% in Q2 FY26, outpacing the 5.4% increase for the overall sector. Ankur Dahiya, Adwait Vikram Singh and Mukesh Christopher founded Rozana in 2021. Dahiya did his doctoral studies at IIM Lucknow, Adwait Vikram Singh graduated from Harvard Law School and Mukesh Christopher earlier co-founded D2C accelerator Fresh Cartons. Rozana raised a $22.5-million Series A at a valuation of $87.4 million in 2024. Fireside Ventures and Bertelsmann India Investments participated in that round.

The consumer brand playbook Innovist refused to follow

2026-08-19 02:00:00.0

French group L’Oréal’s agreement to acquire a majority stake in Innovist comes four years after the Indian beauty player abandoned its original personalisation model and rebuilt its business from scratch. Under the old model, Innovist customised products for individual customers. It has since built a portfolio of D2C brands around scientific formulations and differentiated ingredients. The portfolio includes skincare brand Chemist At Play, haircare line Bare Anatomy, luxury-focused Vinci Botanicals and sun protection product SunScoop. Innovist’s annual run rate went from zero in 2022, the year it stopped making personalised beauty products, to Rs 1,000 crore ($104 million) four years later, co-founder Rohit Chawla told The Arc in an interview. For FY25, Innovist reported operating revenue of Rs 299 crore ($31 million), up 2.8 times from Rs 105.8 crore ($11 million) a year earlier, as per regulatory filings. Total income stood at Rs 301.4 crore ($31.3 million), while net profit was Rs 12 crore ($1.2 million). Chawla founded Innovist with Sifat Khurana and Vimal Bhola in 2019. All three had earlier worked together at The Man Company, which Chawla co-founded in 2015. Emami first acquired 50.4% of The Man Company (Helios Lifestyle) and bought the remaining 49.6% for Rs 177.63 crore ($18.4 million) in 2024. At Innovist, Khurana leads brand and creative, while Bhola, a former scientist at Johnson & Johnson and Unilever, heads research and development. Innovist has raised about Rs 289 crore ($30 million) across six funding rounds. Its investors include ICICI Venture, Sauce, Point72 Ventures, QED Innovation Labs and the Falguni and Sanjay Nayar Family Office. L’Oréal announced the Innovist deal in June 2026. Financial terms were not disclosed, but media reports valued the Indian company at Rs 3,376 crore to Rs 4,340 crore ($350-450 million). That implies a valuation of roughly 11-14 times Innovist’s FY25 operating revenue. The transaction is expected to close in the next few months, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. L’Oréal will begin consolidating Innovist’s sales after closing and has secured the right to acquire the remaining shares. The acquisition gives L’Oréal control of a portfolio that has so far been built largely online. Innovist’s offline and international presence remains limited, and the company is in discussions with L’Oréal on expanding both. For L’Oréal, Innovist is its first acquisition in India in nearly 13 years. It last bought professional skincare brand Cheryl’s Cosmeceuticals in 2013.

Less F&O, more MTF: Discount brokers chase margin-trading revenue

2026-08-14 13:14:00.0

New-age stockbrokers are increasing the amount they lend to investors through margin trading facilities. MTF allows public-market investors to buy shares by paying only part of the purchase value upfront, with the broker financing the rest and charging interest on that amount. Groww is now financing Rs 3,775 crore of customer stock purchases through MTF, while Zerodha’s MTF book has reached about Rs 9,000 crore within 18 months of launching the product. The two companies, along with other tech-led players, are trying to compete with bank-backed brokers that have dominated this segment. For fintech platforms, MTF is far more capital-intensive than simply handling more stock trades. Most well-funded players are financing their MTF books through internal accruals. If they want to grow beyond Rs 10,000 crore, they may need to raise debt or other external capital, which would increase their cost of funds and change the economics of the product. Most brokers charge 14-15% a year on MTF. Paytm Money charges about 8%, while mStock offers rates of around 9%. Some companies are pricing MTF aggressively to sign up more active traders and increase their share of these customers’ broking activity. The rapid expansion has opened a debate over how much larger the MTF market can become without creating excessive leverage. Some industry executives argue that MTF, like any lending product, needs to be scaled cautiously. Broking-platform founders, however, point to the relatively small size of the market: outstanding MTF is Rs 1.4 lakh crore against a free-float market capitalisation of more than Rs 200 lakh crore. Bank-backed brokers still have a structural advantage in funding costs. The question is whether tech-led players can overcome that disadvantage as they try to take market share from firms such as ICICI Securities and Kotak Securities.

Mirae makes first close of Rs 1,800 crore India growth fund

2026-08-13 20:40:00.0

Mirae Asset Venture Investments India has raised Rs 1,125 crore ($128 million) in the first close of its latest India-focused fund. Mirae Asset Venture Opportunity Fund-II is targeting a corpus of Rs 1,800 crore ($189 million) and will invest primarily in early-growth companies across technology platforms, AI and software, deep tech, advanced manufacturing and consumer discretionary sectors. The fund is anchored by the Unicorn Growth Fund, a Rs 6,000 crore ($720 million) India-focused technology fund that Mirae Asset announced earlier this year in partnership with South Korean internet company Naver and gaming company Krafton. This fund will co-invest with the new Mirae Asset Venture as well, besides backing other funds. Mirae Asset’s Indian and global businesses have also committed capital to the new growth fund, which will now look to raise more money from domestic investors. Mirae Asset has been active in India for nearly a decade, with its portfolio including logistics company Shadowfax, stockbroking platform Dhan and lending company KreditBee. Mirae Venture's India unit was set up and led by Ashish Dave, who left last year reportedly to set up his own investment firm Sanskrit Capital. The new fund is being led by Puneet Kumar who joined the firm from Steadview Capital earlier this year. “There is a big gap in the ecosystem today in the Series B-D stages when they are looking for growth capital,” Mirae Asset Venture Investments India CEO Kumar said in a release. Mirae’s recent investments include a round in home services startup Snabbit and it is also reportedly in talks to invest in wealth tech firm Nexedge.

SaaS firms are embracing AI, turning profitable faster: Accel India

2026-08-12 13:25:00.0

Accel, the first institutional investor in Flipkart, Swiggy and Freshworks, has closed its ninth India-specific fund with $550 million in commitments. With the new corpus, it now manages assets of more than $3.6 billion in country focused funds. The fund comes just 18 months after Accel raised $650 million for its previous India vehicle in January 2025. That vehicle is about halfway deployed, and Accel expects to begin investing the fresh capital in 2027. Globally, Accel has gathered $3.5 billion across four new vehicles. The set includes a $1.35-billion growth pot that can invest across markets. Deployment areas: Artificial intelligence will be the biggest new area of interest, spanning platforms, vertical applications, infrastructure and other AI-led products. Accel will also continue betting on consumer, fintech and manufacturing, while increasing its attention on advanced manufacturing and deep tech. Accel’s India strategy has historically depended on getting into companies early (seed, Series A) and continuing to invest as the stronger ones scale. The firm had previously made growth-stage investments in ride-hailing platform Rapido and edtech Eruditus, besides putting additional capital into existing portfolio companies Swiggy and Spinny. SaaS slate: Accel was also an early backer in the wave of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies built from India. It wrote the first institutional cheques into Freshworks, which makes customer-service software; subscription-billing firm Chargebee; beauty-and-wellness software provider Zenoti; and software-testing platform BrowserStack. The rise of generative AI has raised questions about how much of the traditional SaaS stack could be displaced, a concern sometimes described as a “SaaSpocalypse”. Accel’s view is that its more mature SaaS companies are reaching profitability faster while adapting their products to the shift towards AI. Recent investments show where the firm is adding exposure beyond its consumer, B2B commerce and SaaS franchises. In quick services, it has backed 10-minute food-delivery player Swish, premium grocery app FirstClub and medicine-delivery startup Plazza. Deep-tech positions include electric air-taxi startup Sarla and a joint venture with listed manufacturer Aequs to design and manufacture unmanned aerial vehicles and drones for defence and civilian applications. Portfolio performance: Ecommerce major Flipkart is Accel’s biggest return from the country. The firm invested an estimated $80-100 million in Flipkart and made total returns in the range of $1.5 billion to $2 billion. A key development in Accel’s Indian portfolio is the growing number of IPOs. Food-delivery and quick-commerce company Swiggy, home-services platform Urban Company, media-software firm Amagi, omnichannel jeweller BlueStone and trucking platform BlackBuck have all completed stock listings over the past two years. Accel has sold shares worth an estimated Rs 2,000-2,500 crore ($210-262 million) across these five companies, according to The Arc’s calculations. Its remaining holdings in them are worth Rs 7,000-7,500 crore ($733-786 million). The first figure represents shares Accel has already sold, while the second remains unrealised value in listed companies. This gives Accel a liquidity pool of over $1 billion for its limited partners, combining realised proceeds with listed shares that can be sold over time. More Accel bets are moving towards the public markets: B2B platforms Zetwerk and InfraMarket, digital lender Moneyview and furniture-rental company RentoMojo. The Arc spoke with Accel partners Shekhar Kirani, Anand Daniel and Rachit Parekh about the strategy behind the new $550-million India fund and where the firm sees opportunities emerging from AI. Edited excerpts:

Sanlayan's acquisition-led play for defence electronics

2026-08-07 14:11:00.0

Sanlayan Technologies, a three-year-old startup, entered defence electronics by picking up majority stakes in Dexcel Electronics and Versabyte Data Systems. These acquisitions brought it qualified products, orders and programme credentials that would have taken years to build from scratch. Sanlayan’s three founders earlier worked at contract manufacturing platform Zetwerk, handling roles in defence-sector operations, M&A and production-business building. That experience has influenced Sanlayan’s approach to buying suppliers and using them as the base for a defence-electronics platform. Dexcel and Versabyte generate all of Sanlayan’s revenue today. The group entity hit about Rs 140 crore in provisional FY26 revenue, up from Rs 24 crore the previous year, and is profitable, said co-founder and CEO Rohan Gala. Consolidated EBITDA and net profit were not disclosed. The model shortens Sanlayan’s route to market, but it also poses an integration headache. The company has to retain specialist teams, preserve customer trust built by older suppliers and combine their products into larger systems without weakening execution. So far, Sanlayan has raised Rs 257 crore from investors including Jungle Ventures, Madhu Kela’s Singularity Ventures and Ashish Kacholia, and it was valued at Rs 600 crore in 2025. It is currently seeking Rs 400-500 crore in fresh funding, The Arc understands.

IPO-bound Shiprocket’s new businesses may break even in FY28: Financial model

2026-08-06 20:37:00.0

Logistics platform Shiprocket’s core operations are profitable and currently absorb losses of its newer businesses. But that gap may close soon. Calculations made by a financial model suggest that the newer businesses may reach approximate breakeven in FY28. The core operations comprise domestic shipping and a suite of shipping applications. The newer portfolio includes cargo and fulfilment, cross-border shipping, advertising and marketing solutions, hyperlocal deliveries and capital solutions. Shiprocket’s group revenue stood at Rs 2,024 crore in FY26. According to the financial model reviewed by The Arc, group revenue could rise to Rs 3,528 crore in FY28 and to Rs 7,340 crore by FY31. Adjusted EBITDA, excluding employee stock-option expenses, is projected to increase from Rs 17.6 crore in FY26 to Rs 322 crore in FY28 and Rs 1,362 crore by FY31. That would raise the adjusted EBITDA margin from 0.8% in FY26 to about 9% in FY28 and 19% by FY31, the model shows. These are not projections confirmed by Shiprocket, which has filed its final IPO prospectus. In response to queries from The Arc, the company said that the projections were not part of its prospectus and declined to comment on the figures. Domestic shipping and shipping applications are expected to remain Shiprocket’s main source of profit. This core segment has been profitable since FY22 and recorded annualised revenue growth of 17% between FY24 and FY26, although its growth slowed in the latest financial year. The financial model sees the core segment’s revenue to increase by about 20% annually over the next five years. Its adjusted EBITDA margin is projected to move up from 12.5% in FY26 to around 18% by FY31. None of the newer businesses has produced a segment-level profit in the three years disclosed in the IPO prospectus. The financial model estimates that revenue from this portfolio may rise 76% in FY27, before annual growth moderates to 34% by FY31. Promising bets: Much of the turnaround assumed in the model depends on advertising and marketing solutions, which include payments product Fastrr Checkout and Shiprocket Ads. Revenue from the business stood at Rs 83.8 crore in FY26. The model projects it to reach Rs 1,578 crore by FY31. It is also the only business in the emerging portfolio to carry high margins, making its performance important to the wider profitability case. Artificial intelligence is another part of the operating-leverage assumption. Shiprocket disclosed that AI generated about 70% of its code in FY26, while an AI chatbot automatically resolved 65% of customer support tickets. The company plans to begin selling AI agents to small businesses in FY27. Official figures: Shiprocket’s revenue from operations climbed 24% to Rs 2,024 crore in FY26 from Rs 1,632 crore a year earlier, according to its final IPO prospectus. Its restated loss, however, went up from Rs 74.4 crore to Rs 79.2 crore. The core business generated Rs 1,485 crore in revenue, while the loss-making new portfolio contributed Rs 539 crore, or 26.62%. The portfolio’s adjusted EBITDA loss widened to Rs 169 crore in FY26. IPO details: Shiprocket, which is backed by investors including Blinkit owner Eternal and German conglomerate Bertelsmann, plans to open its public issue on August 12 and close it on August 14. The IPO has a total offer size of up to Rs 1,617 crore. The company will raise up to Rs 885.5 crore by issuing fresh shares, while existing shareholders will offload shares worth up to Rs 732 crore through the offer for sale. The total offer has been cut by over 30% from Shiprocket’s earlier plan. The company is seeking a valuation of around Rs 7,000 crore compared with the Rs 10,000-crore price tag at which it last raised private funding. Of the fresh proceeds, Rs 365.6 crore is earmarked for expanding Shiprocket’s platforms, with most of the spending directed towards its newer businesses. This includes Rs 205.8 crore for marketing and Rs 159.8 crore for technology infrastructure. Another Rs 210 crore will be used to clear nearly all of the company’s debt. The remaining capital will be used for unidentified acquisitions and general corporate purposes, together capped at 35% of the gross fresh issue. Selling shareholders: Shiprocket does not have an identifiable promoter and is listing as a professionally managed company, as per the prospectus. Managing director and CEO Saahil Goel and executive director and COO Gautam Kapoor are each selling shares worth up to Rs 61 crore in the OFS. Co-founder Vishesh Khurana will offload shares worth Rs 20 crore. Lightrock will sell shares worth about Rs 272 crore, the largest amount among the selling shareholders, while Tribe Capital will part with shares worth Rs 120 crore. At the IPO valuation, Lightrock, which owns a 4.4% stake, is expected to take a loss of 28% on its investment. Tribe Capital stands to make nearly eight times its investment. IPO Update: On Tuesday, Shiprocket announced that it has raised Rs 727 crore from anchor investors for its Rs 1,617.48 crore IPO, which opens from August 12-14. SBI Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, Kotak Mutual Fund, Nippon Mutual Fund and WhiteOak Capital have emerged as major investors in the anchor book. (screenshot below). The co is valued at approximately Rs 7,058 crore at the upper price band.

Kissht, Fibe and Moneyview take different lending models to IPO market

2026-08-05 11:36:00.0

Venture-backed fintech lenders are hitting the IPO market, looking to become listed businesses in a category dominated by NBFCs like Bajaj Finance. Kissht floated its shares in May, Fibe just filed its draft prospectus in June and Moneyview received Sebi approval in July. Together, the three startups have built assets under management of more than Rs 35,000 crore, based on their latest disclosed numbers. Moneyview has AUM of nearly Rs 20,000 crore, whereas Kissht and Fibe have AUM of Rs 8,000 crore to Rs 9,000 crore each. Around 70% of Moneyview’s asset base results from off-book partnerships with traditional financiers. Fibe and Kissht carry a larger share of loans on their own books, with Fibe’s on-book share at 60% and Kissht’s at 55%. Moneyview is more dependent on partner lenders, while Fibe and Kissht have somewhat more direct balance-sheet exposure. These structures have an effect on capital intensity, risk-sharing and reported margins. The digital lending sector has seen some consolidation in recent years. MyShubhLoans and Axio were acquired by UGro and Amazon, respectively, while some startups struggled to raise fresh funding. Currently, the four major players in the space are Kissht, Fibe, Moneyview and KreditBee.

Return of MDR: Why PhonePe, Paytm, Razorpay stand to gain the most

2026-08-05 11:11:00.0

As the Union government takes the first legislative step towards bringing back the merchant discount rate (MDR) on digital payments, companies like PhonePe, Paytm, Razorpay and Pine Labs could stand to gain anywhere between Rs 150 crore to Rs 1,000 crore in annual revenues, depending on their scale of merchant payments. While the final contours are not out yet, industry sources told The Arc that the government could consider allowing a 0.25%–0.30% MDR on UPI payments above Rs 2,000, according to reports. This fee would be distributed among the issuing bank, acquiring bank and then payment apps like PhonePe or Google Pay would get their cut. Only the first step: Industry executives, however, cautioned that the government's proposed amendment is only the first step. While moving amendments to the Payment and Settlement Systems Act,2007 despite a politically turbulent Parliament session indicates that the Finance Ministry considers the issue a priority, the amendment by itself does not automatically bring back MDR. "What I understand is that it will still take some time, but it is a good start," said the founder of one of India's largest payment companies. A senior banker added that while RBI will eventually frame the operational rules, the final decision on MDR rests with the government, making it largely a policy call. Also this comes at a time when the government is yet to release its incentive pay-out for digital payments processed last year. The Union government had set aside around Rs 2,100 crore to incentivise UPI and RuPay debit card payments processed by fintechs. Even if MDR returns, its impact may be more limited than many expect. UPI remains predominantly a small-ticket payment network. Regulatory discussions have centred around levying MDR only on transactions above Rs 2,000, meaning only a small share of overall UPI payments would attract charges. The proposal is also expected to cover only large merchants with an annual turnover of Rs 40 lakh and more, who account for less than 10% of India's nearly 60 million merchant base, according to industry estimates. NPCI data further illustrates this skew. The industry-wide average UPI ticket size is roughly Rs 1,300. The average P2M payment is only about Rs 600, compared with roughly Rs 2,450 for person-to-person transfers. That means that most of the merchant payments will fall below the Rs 2,000 limit. Paytm and PhonePe: Among the UPI apps, Paytm and PhonePe the two largest merchant acquirers stand to benefit the most, with each looking at a topline boost of around Rs 300 to Rs 700 crore in per annum. Interestingly, while PhonePe dominates the UPI market with 46-48% market share as compared to Paytm, which is a distant third with just 7-8% share. But in terms of merchant payments, the two companies have a comparable business because of the QR code network they have set up. PhonePe settles around 9.6 billion merchant transactions annually. It earned Rs 1,206 crore in merchant payment revenue in the first half of FY26, implying an annualised run rate of more than Rs 2,500 crore, as per its draft documents filed with Sebi earlier this year. This revenue is a mix of MDR from non-UPI payment modes, platform charges and other lending and insurance distribution charges. Paytm, meanwhile, reported merchant revenue of around Rs 600 crore in the first quarter of FY27, translating into an annual run rate of roughly Rs 2,500 crore. It is this revenue stream, which currently relies on fees from financial services and non-UPI digital payment modes, that stands to receive a significant boost if MDR makes a comeback. According to estimates by Bernstein, MDR could eventually settle in the range of 15 to 30 basis points, with UPI third-party application providers (TPAPs) retaining around five basis points after sharing economics with banks. Based on Paytm's merchant payment business, Bernstein estimates the company could see an incremental revenue of Rs 300 crore to Rs 700 crore. Considering PhonePe operates at a comparable scale in merchant payments, back-of-the-envelope calculations based on its FY26 disclosures suggest it could see a similar uplift. Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma recently told analysts that any MDR revenue, whenever it is introduced, would flow almost entirely to the company's bottom line. For IPO-bound PhonePe, such an incremental revenue stream could also provide relief at a time when investors continue to scrutinise its profitability. In FY26, PhonePe reported revenue growth of just 11% to Rs 7,920 crore, while its net loss widened 62% to Rs 2,791 crore. The likes of Google Pay and BharatPe, could be next with comparatively lower MDR payouts, given their scale. Pine Labs and Razorpay: The benefits may not stop with the UPI apps. Merchant payment processors and payment aggregators could also see a meaningful boost to their topline. Pine Labs, during its June quarter earnings, said nearly 70% of its payment volumes now come through UPI. Bernstein estimates Pine Labs could gain between Rs 50 crore and Rs 150 crore in additional revenue, assuming around 70% of its UPI transactions are above Rs 2,000. For Razorpay, which has a dominant presence among online merchants and SMEs, the share of UPI transactions is likely to be similar, if not higher, suggesting that it too could emerge as a meaningful beneficiary if MDR is eventually implemented. Could this help smaller UPI apps? One of the more interesting consequences of MDR could be its impact on smaller UPI apps. Over the past two years, NPCI has encouraged newer players such as Navi, Super.money, Pop, Scapia, Jupiter and even BHIM to scale up and challenge the dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay. These apps currently command just 1% to 2% market share each. But if MDR creates a sustainable revenue pool, smaller players may have greater room to invest in customer acquisition, rewards and merchant incentives, potentially making the UPI market more competitive. Whether the additional revenue simply strengthens the incumbents or helps challengers narrow the gap could become one of the most closely watched outcomes of UPI's next phase. Merchants may push back: While MDR would create a new revenue stream for fintech companies, it would also introduce a fresh cost for merchants that have become accustomed to accepting UPI payments for free. "Organised merchants bargain for every penny. If UPI starts attracting MDR, they will simply factor digital payment costs into their overall economics. That will also affect how much payment companies can charge them for other services," said the founder of a Gurugram-based payment company. Since payment companies like Paytm and PhonePe were not able to charge MDR, they would typically bundle soundbox charges, device servicing charges, processing fees for credit, insurance and many other prices on the merchant. Now with MDR coming into picture, a lot of these charges could get scrutinised, especially by large merchants. Industry executives also pointed out that many organised retailers have actively encouraged UPI payments because they are both popular with customers and free to accept. That could change if merchants have to start paying MDR. This could bring Visa and Mastercard back into the digital payments game. "When RuPay credit cards on UPI were launched with charges attached, merchants such as Decathlon and Pizza Hut resisted. A similar reaction this time would not be surprising," the founder added.

Zepto’s path of list resistance: What delayed IPO reveals about its economics

2026-08-01 12:00:00.0

Capital was the one thing Zepto could always find, even during Covid-19 and the tech slowdown. The quick-commerce player’s valuation jumped from $570 million to $7 billion in four years. That streak hit its first serious test in recent weeks when Zepto’s IPO process forced a harder look at its business. Bankers and institutional investors, including mutual fund houses, sought improved financials, clearer disclosures and like-for-like comparisons with Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart on average order value, margins and accounting treatment. That pressure, along with the possibility of a huge valuation cut from $7 billion to $2.5 billion, made Zepto delay its stock listing by at least two quarters. The Aadit Palicha-led company will instead approach existing investors to seek $100 million, about 12% of its $837-million IPO target. A private round may buy Zepto time, but it won’t provide the balance-sheet cushion the public issue was meant to create. Palicha will have to decide how much Zepto can keep spending on discounts, marketing and dark stores before the platform generates better economics, or before it needs another infusion. Palicha discussed the investor concerns at a town-hall meeting with Zepto employees on July 31, 2026, a day after retreating from the IPO market. He said that the company would file an updated draft prospectus only after achieving specific targets on negative working capital, AOV and cash burn.

Can Swish get better margins from small orders than Swiggy, Zomato?

2026-07-31 01:35:00.0

Quick food-delivery app Swish is eyeing an operating margin of 15-20% on orders averaging about Rs 250. That target is higher than the food-delivery margins of Zomato and Swiggy, although Swish is building a very different model and is far smaller by orders and markets served. Zomato (Eternal) and Swiggy, both now publicly traded companies, deliver orders from thousands of restaurants, food joints and small eateries under a marketplace model. Swish, founded two years ago, procures raw materials, cooks food in its own neighbourhood kitchens and delivers orders through an in-house fleet in 10 minutes or so. Owning these layers helps Swish retain food gross margins of 60-70%, instead of splitting economics with restaurants as Zomato and Swiggy do. Currently, Swish handles 25,000 to 30,000 orders a day in two markets, Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR. Zomato and Swiggy operate across India, each moving 2 million to 2.25 million food orders daily. Swish competes directly with companies that own some combination of kitchens, food brands and delivery, including Eternal’s Bistro, Zepto Cafe, Rebel Foods, Curefoods and Rapido’s Ownly. Bistro, the closest rival, has its own cloud kitchens and a separate consumer app. As of January 2026, it had 45 kitchens across Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru. It has been adding about 10 kitchens every quarter and is estimated to be managing 60-70 outlets currently. Aniket Shah, Ujjwal Sukheja and Saran Sureshkumar, who earlier worked together at crypto platform Pillow, launched Swish in August 2024. Over the past 18 months, the company has raised $54 million across three funding rounds and reached a valuation of $139 million. Swish is reportedly discussing a fresh raise of $20 million to $50 million from Bertelsmann India Investments. Among its key investors, Accel owns a 26.2% stake, Hara Global 20.4% and Bain Capital Ventures 7.1%. The three founders hold 12.72% each. The opportunity Swish is chasing sits within the Indian cloud-kitchen sector, which crossed Rs 10,000 crore ($1.1 billion) in 2024 and is expected to grow at 30% annually through 2030, as per Redseer’s June 2025 estimates.

Why Paytm’s next consumer bet cannot look like its last one

2026-07-29 00:11:00.0

Merchant payments have partly helped Paytm return to growth after its regulatory troubles, and the listed fintech major is now trying to rebuild its consumer business. Paytm’s monthly transacting users crossed 80 million during the April-June 2026 quarter, picking up from a low of 70 million in December 2024. Founder-CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma sees that as a base from which to restart consumer acquisition with more confidence. During the latest earnings call, Sharma told equity analysts that growing the consumer business was “a project of personal interest” for him. However, he clarified that Paytm would not chase scale through incentives the way it did in its earlier phase. The focus this time is on building a sizeable consumer base for higher-value financial services. “We don’t want market share for the heck of it,” he said, adding that Paytm wanted users who could be monetised through personal credit, wealth management and other financial services. The Noida-based company, owned by One97 Communications, had 96 million monthly transacting users at the start of 2024. The figure began to fall after the RBI restricted key areas of its operations over compliance issues in February that year. The RBI ordered One97 affiliate Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) to stop offering basic banking services. PPBL underpinned Paytm’s transaction flow, and its suspension affected the company’s ability to process UPI payments for consumers as well as merchants. Paytm could resume digital payments only after becoming a third-party UPI app. PPBL’s banking licence was cancelled in April 2026 and regulators this week appointed a former SBI executive to liquidate the entity.

Swiggy taps former Myntra CEO Nandita Sinha to turn around Instamart

2026-07-28 20:08:00.0

Swiggy has appointed former Myntra chief executive Nandita Sinha to lead Instamart, handing the e-commerce veteran the task of improving the quick-commerce unit’s performance amid widening losses and intensifying competition. Sinha will take over as chief executive of Instamart on Aug. 3, succeeding Amitesh Kumar Jha, who has resigned after nearly two years in the role, Swiggy said Tuesday. Both Sinha and Jha are also veterans of e-commerce major Flipkart, where they spent over a decade. Sinha most recently served as CEO of Myntra, where she helped the fashion e-commerce platform expand its market share after it achieved Ebitda profitability in 2024. She had held multiple roles at Flipkart before, including as head of customer growth and leading categories like home & furniture. Sinha, an IIT-BHU graduate with MBA from FMS-Delhi, has more than two decades of experience across consumer businesses, having previously worked at Britannia Industries and Hindustan Unilever. Jha joined Instamart in September 2024, replacing Swiggy co-founder Phani Kishan Addepalli, who had led the quick-commerce arm for about 18 months. Before joining Swiggy, Jha spent nearly 14 years at Flipkart, where he oversaw operations at logistics arm Ekart and most recently served as senior vice president of category and marketplace. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad. Majety credited Jha with guiding Instamart through a period of rapid expansion, launching new formats such as Maxxsaver, Fresh Press and recently Noice, while steadily improving the business’s contribution margin. Jha’s departure follows the exits of two other senior Instamart executives. Chief Operating Officer Ankit Jain and Chief Business Officer Hari Kumar, both former Flipkart executives who worked closely with Jha, stepped down in June. Kumar has taken a medical break, while Jain has recently joined Nykaa as head of its quick commerce unit. Instamart, launched in August 2020, competes with Blinkit, Zepto, Tata-owned BB Now, Flipkart Minutes and Amazon Now, as well as newer entrants such as FirstClub. Blinkit, owned by Eternal, is the only major quick-commerce operator to report an adjusted Ebitda profit. Swiggy has set a target of reporting contribution margin break even for April-June 2026 quarter. Swiggy Instamart had recorded an exit contribution margin loss of -1.1% in March 2026, improvement from its overall Q4 FY26 average contribution margin of -1.8%. Swiggy’s share price was up 3.67% on Tuesday at 1:47 pm, trading at Rs 267.45 per share and giving the company a market capitalisation of close to Rs 70,000 crore.

FY26: PhonePe's loss widens 62% on higher marketing spend

2026-07-26 15:19:00.0

Digital payments major PhonePe saw a 62% spike in net losses in the last financial year, driven by a 92% jump in marketing expenses, according to filings made with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs sourced through Tofler. The parent company, PhonePe Limited closed FY26 with a consolidted operating revenue of Rs 7,920 crore, up 11.4% from Rs 7,105 crore a year earlier. Its net loss stood at Rs 2,791 crore, up from Rs 1,727 crore a year earlier. The losses were driven primarily by a major jump in operating expenses including employee expenses but also a sharp uptick in marketing and promotional spends. In FY26, PhonePe reported advertising spends of Rs 956 crore, up 92% from Rs 496 crore a year earlier. Interestingly the Walmart-backed fintech startup had actually reined in its marketing expenses 40% from Rs 691 crore in FY24. PhonePe’s employee benefit expenses went up 11.5% to Rs 4,386 crore in FY26. PhonePe also reported an incentive income of Rs 286 crore in FY26, primarily from RuPay credit card promotional scheme of the Reserve Bank of India and Open Network for Digital Commerce ONDC’s scheme to promote buyer side digital orders. This comes at a time when other fintech players and IPO-bound companies have controlled advertising spends in their efforts to strengthen their balance sheet. Paytm closed FY26 with a net profit of Rs 552 crore on a total revenue of Rs 8,437 crore. Also, PhonePe’s revenue slowdown wasn’t driven by its core payments business but the ban on real money gaming and shutdown of its rent payments product. Together, these businesses contributed nearly Rs 1,500 crore in revenue in FY25. All bets on lending Among PhonePe’s multiple bets beyond digital payments, the credit business is emerging as the sole strong one with the true potential to propel the group’s consolidated finances into profits as it prepares to take a second stab at an initial public offering in the coming months. According to filings, sourced via Tofler, PhonePe Lending Services reported a net profit of Rs 74 crore turning around from a net loss of Rs 162 crore in FY25. The company’s turnover stood at Rs 945 crore, up 2.5 times from Rs 375 crore in FY25. The Arc wrote on Friday that PhonePe is scaling up lending aggressively and is disbursing more than Rs 2,000 crore in merchant and consumer loans through its platform. PhonePe acts as a sourcing platform working with more than 56 lending partners for this business. The company makes a net commission of around 3.5 to 4% per loan disbursed and helps the lenders with managing the portfolio as well. It has also applied for a non-banking finance company licence from the Reserve Bank of India, which is still awaited. PhonePe’s rapid scale-up in lending, a business it had stayed away from till 2023-24, needs to be understood in the context of its aspirations of getting listed in India and turning into a profitable company. It halted its IPO plans earlier this year citing the crisis in Iran and is planning to refile its papers in the coming months. However the group has been in losses, despite steady revenue growth, which has resulted in the PhonePe leadership looking for answers in the credit business. This has put PhonePe in a tough spot, with public market investors, given its closest rival Noida-headquartered Paytm has grown its revenues and also become profitable, through an outsized bet on lending. Other subsidiaries continue to struggle One of the key business bets for PhonePe in financial services was the wealth play, where it had acquired Wealthdesk. But this business has continued to remain small with revenues of Rs 108 crore in FY26, compared to Rs 48 crore a year earlier. Its net loss stood at Rs 201 crore, down 53% from Rs 309 crore a year earlier. However the other major bet for fintech, the insurance business saw a sharp climb in losses. The insurance distribution business reported a net loss of Rs 80 crore, up four times from Rs 20 crore a year earlier. Its turnover went up slightly to Rs 191 crore from Rs 180 crore. The third important subsidiary entity Indus Appstore reported a net loss of Rs 287 crore, compared to Rs 158 crore a year earlier. This on a revenue of Rs 79 lakh. Interestingly, all the three chief executives of each of these verticals stepped down from their positions earlier this year. While Share.Market’s Ujjwal Jaiin resigned in May 2026, Akash Dongre, chief product officer at Indus Appstore left the company in June and in July the CEO of its insurance broking business Vishal Gupta quit the firm.

PhonePe’s IPO case now rests on lending and Paytm benchmark

2026-07-24 12:47:00.0

PhonePe, the largest UPI payments player and the most valuable fintech in India, is turning to the credit business to improve its non-payments revenue and build a clearer path to profitability. The move comes after the Walmart-owned company, last valued at $12 billion, paused its IPO plans earlier this year. Currently, PhonePe is facilitating above Rs 2,000 crore of loan disbursals every month, split between consumer and merchant credit, said three people aware of the numbers. That would translate into an annualised disbursal run rate of about Rs 24,000 crore. Merchant loans account for an annualised disbursal run rate of Rs 14,000 crore, while consumer loans make up the rest, the sources added. In FY25, PhonePe arranged Rs 4,500 crore of merchant loans, indicating a sharp year-on-year increase in this segment. PhonePe does not lend from its own balance sheet. It acts as a loan-sourcing partner for 56 lenders, using its payments network to bring them consumer and merchant borrowers. It entered the merchant loan segment in March 2023 and consumer loans in February 2024. As of September 2025, it had facilitated about Rs 14,270 crore in cumulative loan disbursals. Back-of-the-envelope estimates suggest it has more than doubled its loan disbursal pace in less than two years. PhonePe applied for a licence to operate its own non-banking financial company (NBFC) in November 2025 and is awaiting regulatory approval. It had earlier sought this status in 2021 and 2023, but both requests were rejected because Flipkart, then part of the same group, already held an NBFC licence. Update on July 25: PhonePe's latest financials were released one day after the publication of this article. Here are the details - PhonePe's consolidated financials show operating revenue crossing Rs 7,920 crore ($910 mn) in FY26, growing 11.3% YoY. More importantly, consolidated net loss spiked by 62% to Rs 2,792 crore ($321 mn), according to MCA filings sourced through Tofler. Employee expenses, which includes ESOP costs, rose 7.1% to Rs 4,386 crore ($504 million). For PhonePe, there is a sharp slowdown in revenue growth to just 11% in FY26 from 41% growth in FY25 and 74% in FY24. But the silver lining is the lending business - the topline of PhonePe Lending unit is up 151% to Rs 945 crore in FY26. Also, it swung to a Rs 74 crore profit in FY26 from Rs 162 crore loss in FY25.

How WeRize turned LIC agents into a financial services network

2026-07-24 01:20:00.0

WeRize runs a marketplace that distributes loans, insurance and investment products to customers across nearly 5,000 smaller towns and cities in India. The Bengaluru-based fintech works through freelance agents, allowing it to reach these markets without building a branch-led operation. WeRize also owns an NBFC, which gives it the ability to arrange loans through co-lending partnerships as well as its own balance sheet. The company clocked revenue of Rs 239.8 crore in FY25, up from Rs 147.6 crore a year earlier, while net profit nearly doubled to Rs 10 crore. Tracxn compiled the figures from filings with the ministry of corporate affairs. As of May 2026, the business was at a gross revenue run rate of around $65 million and a net revenue run rate of $32 million, said founder-CEO Vishal Chopra. The company aims to keep doubling revenue and tripling net profit over the next few years and undertake an IPO by 2028. Chopra started WeRize with Himanshu Gupta in 2018. Before that, they worked at LendingKart, leading digital lending and AI underwriting, respectively. Chopra was also part of Amazon India’s early team, helping launch its marketplace business, while Gupta built machine learning models for credit underwriting. So far, WeRize has raised nearly $35 million in funding from 3one4 Capital, Sony Innovation Fund and other investors, and it was last valued at $145 million, as per Tracxn data. The most recent funding round was completed in June.

‘Era of business-model innovation in India is over’

2026-07-22 13:14:00.0

Silicon Valley has produced hundreds of AI unicorns over the past four years. The Indian startup ecosystem largely sat outside that boom. That has started to change. In the past month, India has minted two AI unicorns: foundation-model startup Sarvam and vibe-coding company Emergent, both valued at $1.5 billion. The two companies have one investor in common: Lightspeed Venture Partners. Hemant Mohapatra led Lightspeed’s early bets on Sarvam and Emergent, backing them at the seed or Series A stage. Lightspeed is the largest shareholder in Sarvam with a 14-15% stake after its founders and management, who own nearly 60%, as per Tracxn data. In an in-depth interview with The Arc, Mohapatra says the AI moment represents a major shift. Indian startups, he argues, need to move beyond business-model innovation, where margins can always be squeezed, and build around deeper technology-led differentiation in the AI era. Lightspeed is already seeing a new crop of entrepreneurs coming up. “We have made more investments in AI in the past 12 months than in the previous two combined,” he tells The Arc. Mohapatra also discusses how a new generation of AI-led services companies may evolve, what the change means for SaaS startups and how the profile of Indian tech founders is changing. Mohapatra began his venture capital career in India in 2018 after more than a decade in Silicon Valley, where he worked across product management, business development and strategy at Google and chipmaker AMD. Before returning to India, he spent a year at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Besides Sarvam and Emergent, his AI investments include Supabase, the open-source Firebase alternative; Composio, which connects AI agents and applications; and Rephrase, a video creation platform acquired by Adobe. He has also backed deeptech startups Airbound, a drone logistics company, and Pixxel, which builds hyperspectral Earth-imaging satellites. Globally, Lightspeed has been a major backer of frontier AI labs, including Anthropic in the US and Mistral in France. It is an investor in AI application companies Glean, valued at $7 billion, Suno ($5.4 billion) and Granola ($1.5 billion).

Can Fairdeal make small-order wholesale work for kiranas?

2026-07-09 22:00:00.0

Gurgaon-based Fairdeal Market is building B2B quick commerce for small retailers, from kiranas and paan shops to tea stalls, delivering FMCG supplies within 60 minutes. Traditional distribution in India is geared towards large wholesale orders and next-day delivery. Fairdeal wants to become the top-up channel for local retailers, using smaller, more frequent orders to replenish products as they run out. Currently, Fairdeal supplies goods to more than 20,000 retailers in Delhi-NCR, logging an average order value of Rs 3,500. The company operates six dark stores in the region and plans to open four more in the coming month. Founders Prateek Bansal and Yash Bansal, who are brothers, estimate that Fairdeal’s current scale represents less than 10% of the opportunity in Delhi-NCR. There is room to run a network of 60 dark stores in the market. Fairdeal’s revenue rose from Rs 1.2 crore in FY24 to Rs 14.2 crore in FY25, Tracxn data shows. At the same time, net loss went up from Rs 4 crore to Rs 4.6 crore. In May 2026, the four-year-old company raised $15 million in Series A funding, a round led by Bertelsmann India Investments and supported by WaterBridge Ventures and Incubate Asia Fund. The round took Fairdeal’s total funding to $20 million. The Bansals started Fairdeal in 2022. Before that, Prateek built Health and Hygiene Pro Services, which supplied surgical consumables and medical devices to chemists. The business reached around Rs 15 crore in GMV before he sold it for Rs 5 crore in cash. Yash worked in brand and strategy at FMCG major Marico.

Mukesh Bansal’s Cult.fit files for IPO to raise Rs 950 cr

2026-07-07 19:09:00.0

Gym and wellness chain Cult.fit has filed draft papers for its initial public offering, seeking to raise Rs 950 crore in primary capital. Promoters and existing investors in the company intend to offload 17.8 crore shares through the offer-for-sale component of the issue. The Bengaluru-based company may undertake a pre-IPO placement of up to Rs 190 crore. If completed, the amount raised will be deducted from the size of the fresh issue. Cult.fit was last valued at Rs 12,650 crore ($1.37 billion), as per Tracxn data. Among the selling shareholders, Temasek affiliate MacRitchie Investments is offering the most shares — 2.4 crore. Founder Mukesh Bansal will part with 1.6 crore shares, while Accel India will sell 65.3 lakh shares. Other investors participating in the offer for sale are Fitness First Luxembourg, IDG Ventures, Tata Digital, Chiratae, Bruno Eduard Raschle, Schroders Capital Private Equity Asia Mauritius and Twenty Nine Capital Partners. Kotak Mahindra Capital, Axis Capital, Goldman Sachs (India), Jefferies India and JM Financial are the book-running lead managers to the issue, while MUFG Intime India is the registrar. Cure.fit, started by Bansal and Ankit Nagori as Cure.fit in 2016, owns multiple fitness and wellness-focused businesses. As of March 31, 2026, the company operated 708 fitness centres across 77 cities, either directly or via franchise and marketplace partners, and had over 9.8 lakh paying members. The company also sells activewear and fitness equipment under the Cultsport brand. As of March 2026, it had around 6,500 SKUs across 29 stores. Of the total IPO proceeds, Cult.fit plans to use Rs 276.6 crore for expansion, another Rs 23.4 crore for new Cultsport stores and Rs 75 crore for marketing and brand promotion. The IPO document also mentions an outlay of Rs 217.5 crore for lease, rent and licence payments for company-operated gyms, while Rs 120 crore will be used to pay down debt. Financials: For FY26, Cult.fit reported operating revenue of Rs 1,720.6 crore, up from Rs 1,215.5 crore in FY25 and Rs 926.7 crore in the year before that. The company saw its first full year of adjusted EBITDA profitability. Adjusted EBITDA stood at Rs 144.8 crore in FY26 as against a loss of Rs 33.5 crore in FY25 and Rs 140.2 crore in FY24. Adjusted EBITDA margin rose to 8.4% in FY26 from -2.8% and -15.1% during the same stretch. Cult.fit’s revenue from franchised gyms rose 50.4% from Rs 234 crore in FY25 to Rs 352 crore in FY26. Marketplace gym revenue increased 25.9% from Rs 165.2 crore to Rs 208 crore. The services business, which includes fitness centres and memberships, turned profitable. The segment logged a profit of Rs 210 crore, with margins improving to 17.5%, compared with a profit of Rs 54.8 crore and a 6.1% margin in the previous year. The product business, which includes Cultsport, posted a loss of Rs 57.3 crore, down from Rs 79.9 crore in the year ending March 2025. Category margin went up to -10.9% from -24.4%. About four months before its IPO move, Cult.fit secured $47 million in private funding from MacRitchie Investments. Its lifetime funding haul, across 13 rounds, is $714 million. In April 2026, the company appointed four independent directors to its board: Kalpana Morparia, Arun Kumar, Indu Bhushan and Pragya Misra. During Covid-19, Cult.fit (then Cure.fit) spun off its food business, Eat.fit, into a separate company, with Nagori taking charge as its founder and CEO. Nagori exchanged much of his Cult.fit equity for a 30-35% stake in the new venture, which was later renamed as Curefoods.

Peak XV’s Surge raises seed cheque cap to $5 mn, looks beyond Asia

2026-07-03 13:07:00.0

Peak XV Partners’ seed-stage programme, Surge, is increasing its maximum cheque size from $1.5 million to nearly $5 million, more than tripling its initial investment per company since the 2019 launch. “When we lead the seed round, our goal is to give you [startups] enough capital to launch your product, reach product-market fit, build a team and get to a set of metrics that help you raise Series A,” Peak XV managing director Rajan Anandan told The Arc. The move follows the VC firm’s $1.3 billion fundraising earlier this year, its first independent effort since separating from US parent Sequoia Capital in 2023. Peak XV was earlier called Sequoia Capital India. The $1.3-billion corpus has been split across three funds: India Seed, India Venture and Asia-Pacific. The last of these expands Peak XV’s earlier Southeast Asia mandate, allowing it to invest selectively in Japan, South Korea and some other regions. Surge, Anandan said, is also looking to include more global companies in its cohorts. Surge’s highly valued alumni include enterprise data collaboration platform Atlan, worth $750 million, Singapore-based eSim co Airalo worth $1 billion and digital bookkeeping startup Khatabook, valued at $600 million. Fabless semiconductor player Mindgrove and employee healthcare platform Plum are among other notable bets. D2C brand Minimalist was acquired last year, giving Peak XV over 10x returns.

Oyo’s parent firm files for Rs 6,650-cr IPO in third attempt

2026-06-30 16:05:00.0

Prism, the parent of hospitality brand Oyo, is looking to raise Rs 6,650 crore in primary capital through an IPO. It may also undertake a pre-IPO placement of up to Rs 1,330 crore, which would be deducted from the fresh issue if completed. The company confidentially filed its draft papers in December 2025 and received Sebi’s sign-off earlier this month. This is Oyo’s third attempt at a public listing after earlier filings in 2021 and 2023. The book-running lead managers for the issue are Axis Capital, Citigroup Global Markets India, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, ICICI Securities, SBI Capital Markets, JM Financial, InCred Capital and Intensive Fiscal Services. Debt repayment is the central use of proceeds. Oyo plans to utilise about 75% of the proposed Rs 6,650 crore IPO to repay borrowings. Under its credit agreement, the company is required to use all net cash proceeds, including from the IPO, to prepay its term loan. Oyo spent almost Rs 1,100 crore on debt servicing in the first nine months of FY26 and still carries term loans of over Rs 7,000 crore. Most of this burden traces back to an $825-million term loan B raised in 2021, while the rest is linked to the Motel 6 acquisition two years ago. Oyo acquired G6 Hospitality, the parent of Motel 6 and Studio 6, from Blackstone Real Estate in 2024 in an all-cash deal worth $525 million. In addition to India, Oyo operates in Europe, Southeast Asia and the US. The total number of markets is 35. Globally, its biggest competitor is Airbnb, which is also an investor in the company. In India, Oyo’s rivals include TripVillas, Stayzilla and StayVista, as well as hostel chains Zostel, The Hosteller and GoStops. For the nine months ended December 31, 2025, Oyo reported revenue from operations of Rs 6,940.9 crore and profit of Rs 748.3 crore. In FY25, revenue stood at Rs 6,252.8 crore, up 16% from Rs 5,388.7 crore in FY24. Profit rose marginally to Rs 244.8 crore from Rs 229.5 crore. Ritesh Agarwal founded Oyo in Gurugram when he was about 19. In 2012, he set up Oravel Stays, an aggregator for budget accommodation modelled on Airbnb. A year later, Agarwal pivoted Oravel Stays into Oyo Rooms, partnering with small hotels to offer budget stays. In 2013, he became the first Asian resident to receive the Thiel Fellowship, set up by billionaire investor Peter Thiel to support innovators who drop out of university to build companies, conduct research or work on social movements. The fellowship came with a $100,000 grant.

OpenAI picks Uber India head Prabhjeet Singh to lead local operations

2026-06-27 00:18:00.0

Prabhjeet Singh has stepped down as the president of Uber India and South Asia to join OpenAI, where he will serve as managing director for country operations. With over 100 million users, India is the second-largest market for OpenAI’s flagship conversational assistant, ChatGPT. Singh is leaving the ride-hailing major after a stint of nearly 11 years. While he told Uber employees in an email that he was taking up a leadership role at a “frontier technology” company, OpenAI confirmed to some media outlets that he would begin his new role in September. Singh will be OpenAI’s most ‌senior ⁠leader in India, managing the company’s ⁠performance across consumer growth, enterprise adoption ⁠and partnerships, Reuters reported, citing a statement by OpenAI. He will report to Kiran Mani, who heads the Asia Pacific operations. Singh studied at IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad and spent nine years as an associate partner at McKinsey & Company. He joined Uber as general manager and head of strategy in August 2015. He was appointed as the president of Uber India and South Asia in July 2020, succeeding Pradeep Parameswaran, who moved up to lead the company’s Asia Pacific business. India is Uber’s third-largest market by trips. The company has a workforce of over 4,000 in the country. During Singh’s tenure, it navigated one of the toughest periods in the Indian ride-hailing sector, recovering from the pandemic-time slump, capitalising on Ola’s decline and defending its position against fast-growing Rapido. Over the past six years, Uber India has also expanded its services beyond ride-hailing, entering parcel delivery and B2B logistics. Uber’s Indian business reported total sales of Rs 3,849.2 crore for FY25. Operating loss increased from Rs 84.8 crore in FY24 to Rs 1,052.3 crore, while net loss rose from Rs 89 crore to Rs 1,511 crore. Operating margin slipped to negative 27.3% from negative 2.2%. “It wasn’t a decision to leave Uber as much as it was a decision to run towards something I couldn’t ignore. Uber is an incredibly strong place today, which made this decision both easier and harder at the same time,” Singh said in an email to employees. An Uber India spokesperson told The Arc that India was among Uber’s most important markets globally, an important driver of innovation and long-term growth. “We thank Prabhjeet [Singh] for his leadership and lasting contributions in his decade-long journey with Uber. We remain deeply committed to our next phase of growth in India,” the official said.

Slower quick commerce? FirstClub’s quality route to higher AOV

2026-06-25 01:58:00.0

Quick-commerce app FirstClub has one of the highest average order values in Indian online grocery at nearly Rs 1,200. It has built this basket size by listing a more selective range of higher-quality, healthier products and designing a shopping experience that feels different from other platforms. The two-year-old company currently serves 1.7 lakh households in Bengaluru. Around 60% of customers who order in a given month return to transact the following month. While on-demand delivery is its main business, FirstClub also offers a subscription service for early-morning drops of dairy products, batters, bread and other essentials. Ayyappan Rajagopal, who earlier led Cleartrip as CEO and was a senior vice president at Flipkart, started FirstClub in 2024. Arvind Charanyan, Rajagopal’s colleague from Flipkart, soon came on board as a co-founder. Charanyan has also worked at HUL, Myntra and Coupang. FirstClub closed a $55-million Series B earlier this month, touching a valuation of $255 million. Overall, it has raised over $86 million in funding from investors like Accel, Peak XV Partners and RTP Global.

Swiggy pushes Dineout beyond discounts as going-out bet grows

2026-06-18 22:00:00.0

Four years after acquiring Dineout, Swiggy is trying to get more profit from the going-out business. Dineout, housed under Swiggy’s flagship app, helps users find local restaurants, reserve tables and get discounts on dining bill payments. The company is expanding Dineout’s product suite as well as restaurant base, shedding its old identity as a simple discounting-based discovery feature. Swiggy, which publicly listed its shares in 2024, operates three major businesses: food delivery, quick-commerce unit Instamart and an out-of-home consumption vertical that includes Dineout and events ticketing service Scenes. In Q4 FY26, revenue from the out-of-home consumption segment grew 60% year on year to Rs 107 crore, while profit rose to Rs 10 crore from Rs 2 crore. FY26 was this segment’s first full year of profitability. Swiggy bought Dineout from Times Internet in an all-equity deal valued at around $120 million in 2022. Since then, the going-out business has grown more than threefold. In May 2026, the company promoted Swapnil Bajpai to chief executive officer of Dineout and Scenes. At the group level, Swiggy posted consolidated adjusted revenue of Rs 6,383 crore in Q4 FY26, up 44.7% year on year. Losses fell to Rs 800 crore from Rs 1,081 crore. Of the total adjusted revenue, food delivery accounted for Rs 2,304 crore in the quarter, up 23.4% YoY. Profit stood at Rs 306 crore, up 39% from Rs 220 crore. Swiggy rival Eternal (Zomato) operates the District app, which combines multiple out-of-home categories like dining, movies, concerts, live events, sports venue bookings and local discovery. In FY26, District’s revenue climbed 32% to Rs 973 crore. Adjusted EBITDA loss increased to Rs 81 crore from Rs 34 crore in the previous year. In a letter to shareholders, Eternal said that District could reach $150 million in adjusted EBITDA by FY30.

Insurance distributor Turtlemint takes 30% valuation cut for IPO

2026-06-18 16:35:00.0

Insurtech platform Turtlemint has lined up an initial public offering, looking to raise Rs 661 crore through a fresh issue of equity shares. Existing investors will sell 14.6 million shares worth Rs 222 crore through an offer for sale, which puts the total IPO size at Rs 883 crore. The Mumbai-based company has set a price band of Rs 144-152 a share. The subscription window will open on June 19 and close on June 23. At the upper end of the price band, the issue will value Turtlemint at Rs 4,513 crore, a 30% discount to its last private-market valuation of Rs 6,300 crore in 2022. Turtlemint sells health, motor and term insurance products through tie-ups with major insurers. It plans to use the IPO proceeds towards technology, employee costs, marketing and lease expenses. It will also invest in its wholly owned subsidiary, Turtlemint Insurance Broking, to fund working capital needs and other general corporate purposes. Dhirendra Mahyavanshi and Anand Prabhudesai, both former Quikr executives, founded Turtlemint in 2015. They raised about $220 million in private funding across various rounds, including a $120-million Series E in 2022 that was led by Vitruvian Partners and Marshall Wace. As part of the offer for sale, Prabhudesai and Mahyavanshi will offload shares worth Rs 32 crore and Rs 33.6 crore, respectively. Investors Blume Ventures, Dream Incubator, GGV VII Investments, Humming Bird Investment Holdings, Nexus Ventures IV and Peak XV Partners, along with former co-founder Kunal Shah, will make a partial exit. Together, the investors will offload shares worth Rs 156.2 crore. Nexus and Peak XV, the largest shareholders in Turtlemint with stakes of about 20% each, and are expected to make 7-9X in returns. ICICI Securities, Jefferies India, JM Financial and Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors are the book-running lead managers to the issue. Financials: For the nine months ended December 2025, Turtlemint reported revenue from operations of Rs 741 crore, up 80.2% from Rs 411 crore a year earlier. Losses increased by 21.1% to Rs 187.3 crore from Rs 154.6 crore. The company’s losses were mostly flat in FY25 at Rs 194.1 crore compared with Rs 193.3 crore in FY24. Turtlemint competes with PB Fintech, QuickInsure, InsuranceDekho, Ditto Insurance and Coverfox Insurance. Listed group PB Fintech, the parent of Policybazaar and Paisabazaar, saw its income from insurance broking services rise 43.7% to Rs 1,900.6 crore from Rs 1,322.3 crore. Its total insurance premium went up by 46% to Rs 9,217 crore. By comparison, Turtlemint’s income from the distribution of financial services stood at Rs 646.9 crore for the nine months ended December 2025, up from Rs 6.9 crore a year earlier. At the end of the period, the company’s balance in bank accounts other than cash and cash equivalents was Rs 72 crore, down from Rs 268.1 crore a year earlier.

Zepto has three quarters of cash left ahead of IPO

2026-06-11 23:01:00.0

Quick-commerce player Zepto, which is headed for a stock listing, has about Rs 2,970 crore ($311 million) of net cash, as per BofA Securities’ calculations. At its current rate of cash burn (Q4 FY26), the company has roughly nine months, or three quarters, of runway. Zepto had reported cash and cash equivalents of Rs 5,681 crore at the end of FY26. BofA Securities, however, adjusted that figure for disclosed lease liabilities of Rs 2,710 crore. The brokerage said that balance-sheet strength would matter sharply in the highly competitive quick-commerce sector. On the same adjusted measure, Swiggy held net cash of Rs 12,602 crore ($1.32 billion) and Eternal Rs 13,380 crore ($1.4 billion). The two listed peers, which operate Instamart and Blinkit, respectively, have since listing raised additional capital through qualified institutional placements to reinforce their balance sheets. In the fourth quarter of FY26, Blinkit recorded an adjusted EBITDA profit of Rs 37 crore. Swiggy Instamart and Zepto reported adjusted EBITDA losses of Rs 858 crore and Rs 1,248 crore, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA is not the same as free cash flow, but it gives investors a useful read on operating losses and the pressure on runway. Those figures help explain why Zepto is pushing ahead with an IPO even as the listing environment has turned uneven, prompting PhonePe and Curefoods to delay their public-market debuts. Zepto is expected to go public at a valuation of ~$4 billion as against its last private-market valuation of $7 billion, according to market sources. Cash is king: Zepto is locked in a cash-heavy contest. Blinkit and Instamart are already part of listed consumer internet groups, while recent quick-commerce entrants Amazon and Flipkart are spending aggressively to build scale. For Zepto, access to fresh capital is not only about funding expansion. It is also about keeping enough balance-sheet cushion to compete in a category where discounts, dark stores and delivery speed can quickly absorb cash. “We consider competition in the quick-commerce segment to remain high for the foreseeable future as new entrants add more dark stores and continue to spend higher on discounts,” BofA Securities said. It added that “platforms with strong execution and solid balance sheet would be key beneficiaries." Zepto filed an updated prospectus for its IPO on Monday night, June 8, seeking to raise Rs 8,010 crore in fresh capital. The issue also includes an offer for sale of 113.5 million shares, largely by early investor Nexus Venture Partners. Complex numbers: Comparing Zepto with Blinkit and Instamart is not straightforward because the companies do not disclose the same operating metrics. Zepto has not mentioned net order value (NOV), the metric reported by Swiggy and Eternal. Instead, it has disclosed net receivables value (NRV), a broader measure that includes multiple revenue streams. To make the comparison cleaner, analysts have stripped out advertising receipts, subscription fees, franchise fees and scrap sales to estimate Zepto’s NOV. A theoretical market-share calculation by BofA Securities shows Blinkit as the leading quick-commerce platform with a 52% NOV share in Q4 FY26, followed by Zepto at 27% and Instamart at 21%. “We consider the market shares in the sector to be fluid and believe a clearer picture on the leading platforms would emerge as and when discounts are pulled down,” the BofA Securities report said. Accounting practice: The comparison is further complicated by how Zepto recognises revenue. Questions have cropped up about Zepto recognising the value of goods traded through parts of its platform as revenue despite being a foreign-owned and controlled company, or FOCC. Swiggy reported a gross order value of Rs 7,881 crore for Instamart in Q4 FY26, but adjusted revenue of Rs 1,090 crore. Swiggy is also currently classified as an FOCC, which means it operates under a marketplace model and recognises only commissions, service fees and other platform-related income as revenue. Blinkit, which became an Indian-owned and controlled entity in 2025, now books the full value of goods sold through its platform as revenue. Zepto’s topline metric tells a different story. Its NRV of Rs 8,134 crore was close to its reported operating revenue of Rs 7,498 crore for Q4. That is because Zepto recorded as revenue the value of goods sold by its B2B arm, Kiranakart Wholesale, to merchant partners. The accounting treatment has raised eyebrows because it allows Zepto to report revenue figures that are much closer to the total value of transactions flowing through its ecosystem than the marketplace-led peers. It also pushes Zepto’s FY26 operating revenue from quick commerce alone to Rs 22,624 crore. That is nearly on par with Swiggy’s total operating revenue of Rs 23,053 crore, even though Swiggy’s figure includes both quick commerce and its much larger food-delivery business, which has been operating since 2015.

Zepto wants investors to judge it by a different scorecard than Blinkit, Swiggy

2026-06-09 19:08:00.0

Zepto filed an updated prospectus for its IPO on Monday night, June 8, seeking to raise Rs 8,010 crore in fresh capital. The issue also includes an offer for sale of 113.5 million shares, largely by early investor Nexus Venture Partners. The prospectus does more than lay out the terms of the issue. It gives the first detailed view of how the quick-commerce startup is structured, the metrics it tracks and how it wants to be assessed by public-market investors. Zepto, founded in 2020, enters a market in which Blinkit, part of Eternal, and Swiggy Instamart have already built listed-company records. Zepto’s argument is that quick commerce becomes cheaper to run as density builds. More orders in the same areas improve store productivity, shorten delivery distances, speed up inventory turns and make the supply chain work harder without adding proportionate cost. Blinkit and Instamart’s disclosures, on the other hand, have centred on transaction values, customer engagement and margin progression, reflecting the view that profitability comes from extracting more value from each customer relationship over time. Zepto is telling stock investors that in Indian grocery, density may matter more than transaction value. The question is whether they will get behind that pitch.

Amazon Now’s early scale gives Blinkit reason to watch

2026-06-05 15:08:00.0

As Amazon India scales its new quick-commerce service, Amazon Now, it is trying to win back daily grocery purchases from its high-value customers who moved that spending to Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto. The company sees fresh produce as the main product category for building trust. Fruits and vegetables are a category that customers closely judge for quality, reliability and value. If Amazon Now can get this right, it has a better chance of upgrading customers from trial orders to larger, more regular grocery baskets. Amazon has certain structural advantages in the race: Prime users who shop frequently on its ecommerce marketplace, years of data on consumption patterns, direct relationships with big brands and a delivery network that can be adapted for instant grocery. It is using all these pieces to build Amazon Now while also spending heavily to acquire customers. The company has put two of its most seasoned India executives in charge of areas central to quick commerce. Nishant Sardana, who has worked across Amazon and ITC in consumer electronics, now leads Amazon Now operations. Harsh Goyal, a 13-year company veteran and former chief of staff to ex-India head Amit Agarwal, oversees grocery and everyday essentials. Currently, Amazon Now, launched in June 2025, handles 4 -4.5 lakh orders a day across parts of Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Chennai and Pune. It is already at 13-15% of Blinkit’s daily order volume, despite being present in fewer cities and running fewer dark stores. For the incumbents, the issue is not Amazon Now’s current size. It is the speed at which it is moving, backed by management’s willingness to take risks and spend for the long term.

After Meesho, startups target fashion supply gap in small towns

2026-05-29 13:41:00.0

Small apparel shops in tier-2 and tier-3 towns are unable to keep up with fashion trends their customers now discover online. This is because many of them source stock from traditional wholesalers, who take weeks or months to adjust to changing demand. The risk for shop owners is not just slower sourcing, but poor purchasing decisions that can lock up capital in unsold inventory. A new set of startups is trying to solve this problem at different points in the retail supply chain. Navo, a B2B wholesale fashion marketplace, is using live commerce and video-led interactions to help local retailers buy popular designs remotely. The company, founded by Anshul Singhal and Suparn Goel in 2022, also shares insights into demand patterns with manufacturers, shortening the time it takes for new apparel styles to land on store shelves. Another player, Bijnis, is focused on faster factory-to-store replenishment. Initially, it operated as a marketplace connecting factories and retailers across fashion and lifestyle categories. Retention issues and high cash burn pushed it to pivot to a quick commerce-like model for retailers, with 60-minute deliveries. A parallel layer is emerging around sellers and creators. Zoop, started by Sanchi Virmani, Abhishek Nevatia and Raghav Dalela, is building tools that allow social sellers to stream across platforms while managing orders and inventory in one place. Together, these companies point to a new phase of B2B fashion commerce after inventory access. Meesho has already shown that value fashion can scale among consumers in smaller towns.

Q4 FY26: FirstCry owner faces pressure on growth as competition rises

2026-05-28 00:05:00.0

The operating revenue of Brainbees, which owns omnichannel kidswear retailer FirstCry, grew 12% to Rs 2,162.6 crore in Q4 FY26 from Rs 1,930.3 crore a year earlier. Net loss shrank 57% year on year to Rs 48.2 crore from Rs 111.5 crore, while adjusted EBITDA rose 18% to Rs 118.7 crore. The performance, however, was weaker compared with the previous quarter, Q3 FY26: revenue decreased by 11% from Rs 2,423.6 crore and adjusted EBITDA fell 23% from Rs 153.8 crore. Net loss went up from Rs 38.4 crore. The company’s overall GMV stood at Rs 2,881.4 crore in Q4 — split between Rs 2,340 crore from online channels and Rs 540 crore from offline channels. Following the results, Brainbees’ shares fell about 5% to Rs 225 per share. The stock is down nearly 52% from its IPO price of Rs 465 in August 2024. Through the FirstCry brand, the company operates in India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, among other markets. The multi-channel Indian business recorded revenue of Rs 1,489.9 crore in the fourth quarter, up 11% year on year. GMV rose 12% to Rs 2,453.2 crore. The company extended its faster-delivery service to 62 cities from 22 during the period. The Indian business, however, faced “heightened competitive intensity”, particularly in the diapering category, which hurt both growth and margins. “From Q2 FY27 onwards, the loss here [India] will recover,” Brainbees CEO Supam Maheshwari told analysts during the earnings call. FirstCry is working on a new product portfolio, expected to be completed by the first half of FY27, to increase footfall at its offline stores. “With our current initiatives, we believe that structurally the growth rate for both online and offline channels will be much superior in FY27,” the company said in its investor presentation. The international business was subdued in Q4, with orders increasing by 4% YoY and GMV inching up 2% to Rs 428.2 crore. Revenue came in at Rs 224.8 crore, up 9% YoY, while adjusted EBITDA loss declined 33% to Rs 20.7 crore. The GlobalBees brand business reported revenue of Rs 460 crore for the quarter, up 15% YoY. Adjusted EBITDA went up by 9% to Rs 26.5 crore and adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 5.8% from 0.7% in Q3. The brands segment also turned profitable, posting a net profit of Rs 6.2 crore compared with a loss of Rs 23.4 crore a year earlier. Despite this improvement, gross margin slipped to 44.5% from 47.9%. The company attributed this to the ongoing rationalisation of its “Other Brands” portfolio and a change in settlement terms by the Flipkart group, which affected revenue recognition. In Q4, Brainbees saw ESOP expenses of Rs 48.5 crore, down 41% from Rs 82.3 crore a year earlier. It expects ESOP expenses of Rs 125.2 crore in FY27, or Rs 31.3 crore per quarter. It expects the figure to decline to Rs 65.6 crore in FY28 and Rs 30.8 crore in FY29. Brainbees said that its board had approved an investment of up to Rs 77 crore in its UAE-based subsidiary, Firstcry Management DWC LLC. Of this, about Rs 56 crore has been earmarked for expansion in Saudi Arabia, while the balance will be used for the UAE business. The transaction is expected to be completed by June 2026.