VC firm Peak XV Partners will make a whopping 10X returns on its investment in Minimalist, following the D2C skincare brand’s acquisition by FMCG major Hindustan Unilever (HUL).

The VC major, which holds a 27.5% stake in Minimalist, first invested in the startup in 2019. It is set to make INR 800 Cr on its investment of INR 80 Cr in the startup, sources said.

HUL announced the acquisition of Minimalist today in a deal that will value the D2C startup at INR 2,955 Cr (about $342 Mn) and is one of the largest acquisitions in the Indian startup ecosystem in recent times. The company is acquiring a 90.5% stake in the startup for INR 2,670 Cr (about $309 Mn). HUL will also make a primary infusion of INR 45 Cr in Minimalist. 

The transaction, which will be completed by Q1 FY26, will see Minimalist’s founders Mohit Kumar Yadav and Rahul Yadav, Peak XV and its seed investment platform Surge, and Twenty Nine Capital Partners sell off their stake in the startup. 

Minimalist’s founders are expected to cumulatively make around INR 1,500 Cr by selling their 57.35% stake in the startup. 

HUL will acquire the remaining 9.5% stake in Minimalist in about two years. The cofounders will continue to head the operations of the startup for the next two years.

HUL expects the inclusion of Minimalist in its portfolio to add “another step in the transformation journey of the company’s beauty & wellbeing portfolio towards evolving and higher growth demand spaces”.

For the conglomerate, the beauty and personal care segment constitutes about 37% of its revenues. Its portfolio of BPC brands include Lifebuoy, LUX, Sunsilk, Clinic Plus, Dove, Lakmé, Pond’s and Closeup.

However, the segment’s financial health hasn’t been that great over the past two quarters. In Q3 FY25, HUL’s beauty and wellbeing segment reported a 1% revenue growth while underlying volume growth (UVG) witnessed a “low-single digit decline”. 

In this, HUL’s skin care sales were impacted by a “delayed winter”. It is pertinent to mention that the conglomerate’s portfolio doesn’t have specific serums for skincare, healthcare that Minimalist offers.

Founded in 2020, Minimalist is a consumer focused skin and hair care brand that retails its products through its own website and online marketplaces such as Amazon, Nykaa, Flipkart, and Myntra. While its top line surged 89% to INR 347.4 Cr in the fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24), its annual revenue run rate for FY25 at the end of December 2024 stood at INR 500 Cr, HUL said. 

The post Peak XV Rakes In 10X Gains, Makes INR 800 Cr From Minimalist Exit appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has dismissed an insolvency plea filed by actor Akshay Kumar against edtech startup Cuemath’s parent Cue Learn Pvt. Ltd. over non-payment of endorsement fee on January 7. 

The actor, who had entered an endorsement agreement with the edtech startup on March 8, 2021, sought to recover dues worth over INR 4.83 Cr via the initiation of a corporate insolvency resolution process. 

The agreement stipulated Kumar to render his services in promoting the startup for a maximum of two days for a total of INR 8.10 Cr. While the first installment of INR 4.05 Cr was paid on March 4, 2021, Kumar was supposed to get a “second payment” of INR 4.05 Cr plus GST by April 15, 2022 or seven days prior to the utilisation of the second day of his services. The actor alleged default in the second tranche of the payment. 

In its judgement, the NCLT said that this issue doesn’t qualify as a “debt” and thus is outside of its jurisdiction. 

“The jurisdiction of the NCLT is limited to adjudicating applications strictly within the framework of the IBC. The NCLT’s role is to oversee the insolvency resolution process for qualifying debts, and it cannot be expanded to encompass disputes of a contractual nature that do not fall under the operational or financial debt categories defined by the IBC. Accordingly, the NCLT is not the appropriate forum for adjudication of such claims,” the order read.

According to Kumar’s plea, he fulfilled his obligations on the first day as required, and the deliverable television commercials (TVCs) were utilised by Cuemath on its social media platforms. However, the latter failed to make the second payment on the due date, “raising frivolous and contradictory defences, such as non-receipt of the invoice and lack of agreed dates for the second day”.

The startup’s counsel argued that the second tranche of payment was dependent on Kumar’s availability for a mutually agreed-upon second endorsement day. These dates were never proposed by the actor, which was a breach of the contract and thus negated his claim for the remaining payment. 

The startup also claimed to have sent the actor a mail on April 4, 2022 to request further discussion with the petitioner regarding the ambiguity in the contract terms. However, the actor didn’t respond directly or participate in any further discussions. Instead, he chose to issue a demand notice on June 20, 2022.

On this, the NCLT ruled that the second tranche of payment was contingent upon Kumar;s fulfilment of “certain conditions”. 

However, there is no documentary evidence on record to indicate that these conditions were fulfilled. “Consequently, the obligation to render services on the second day did not materialise as the necessary preconditions were not met. The lack of performance on the part of the OC (Operational Creditor) to provide the required services negates the assertion of an operational debt,” its order read. 

The ad over which the actor is seeking dues came at a time when the edtech space was flush with funds and startups were choosing high-profile personalities for advertisements. 

The time period in question, 2020-2022, saw the likes of Aamir Khan promote Vedantu in 2020, MS Dhoni promoting Unacademy. Not to mention, BYJU’S ad blitz involved big names like Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Lionel Messi. 

However, the edtech sector has been hit hard by a funding crunch for the last couple of years. Barring IPO-bound PhysicsWallah’s $210 Mn fund raise, the sector saw a fresh capital infusion of $358 Mn in 2024. In comparison, the sector saw a capital influx of $4.8 Bn in 2021. 

The post NCLT Quashes Akshay Kumar’s Insolvency Plea Against Cuemath appeared first on Inc42 Media.

With the Centre’s flagship programme ‘Startup India’ entering into its tenth year this week, investors continue to remain bullish on the Indian startup ecosystem. Between January 13 and 18, startups cumulatively raised $308.1 Mn across 24 deals. While the deal count went up from last week’s 20 deals, funding dipped 28.7% from last week’s $432.4 Mn. 

Despite a decline in investment activity over the past week, several positive developments unfolded for startups. Notably, Netradyne became the first startup to join the unicorn club in 2025. Additionally, companies such as Zetwerk, InMobi, and Groww provided clearer timelines for their public listing plans, while multiple new fund launches also hogged the headlines.

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [ Jan 13 – Jan 18 ]

Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

• After raising $90 Mn in its Series D funding round at a valuation of $1.34 Bn, logistics tech startup Netradyne entered the unicorn club this week. Solely, the funding round propelled the logistics sector to scoop up maximum capital infusion this week.
• With four startups, Bolt.Earth, WeVOIS, Euler Motors and BGauss, cumulatively raising $47.8 Mn this week, cleantech saw the largest number of deals materialising this week.
• Seed stage funding zoomed this week to $8.2 Mn, up 215% from the $2.6 Mn raised by startups at this stage in the previous week.

Funds Launches This Week

• Debt marketplace Recur Club has launched a $17.5 Mn fund to accelerate growth of D2C brands in the quick commerce space. It will provide financing to 80-100 D2C brands with ticket sizes ranging from INR 80 Lakh to INR 10 Cr.
• Equity management platform Hissa has announced the launch of Hissa Fund I, a $35 Mn investment vehicle to enable employees of growth-stage startups to convert their vested stock options into cash.
• Riceberg Ventures has launched a $20 Mn fund to back 25-30 deeptech startups with an average cheque size of $500K.
• Avendus marked the first close of its Future Leaders Fund III (FLF III) with INR 850 Cr commitments from leading domestic family offices and Indian institutions.
• SaaS-focussed VC firm Cornerstone Ventures announced the first close of its $200 Mn fund at about $40 Mn. 

Startup IPO Updates Of The Week

• B2B marketplace unicorn Zetwerk shortlisted Axis Capital, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, JM Financial, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Kotak Mahindra Bank as bankers for its upcoming $500 Mn IPO.
• Urban Company is set to file its draft papers for an INR 3,000 Cr initial public offering (IPO) before the end of March. It has reportedly appointed Kotak Mahindra Capital, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as bankers for the IPO.
• Groww is reportedly looking to file for a public offering within 10-12 months. The startup is seeking a valuation between $6-8 Bn for its IPO.
• EV startup Ather is eyeing $2.4 Bn valuation for its upcoming IPO this year, about 80% premium from its last private valuation.
• IPO-bound Zepto has received National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) approval to reverse flip to India. The court has approved the merger of Mumbai-based Kiranakart Technologies with its Singapore-based affiliate, Kiranakart Pte Ltd.
• Adtech unicorn InMobi will be filing its IPO of more than $1 Bn in the next 2-3 months. The startup is eyeing a public listing by October this year. InMobi is targeting a valuation of $8 Bn to $10 Bn for the IPO.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Private equity firm Kedaara Capital made an investment of $350 Mn in California based enterprise AI solutions provider Impetus Technologies.
• Ecommerce major Flipkart is in talks to lead a $35-40 Mn funding round of fintech startup Super.money.
• EV fleet startup MoEVing bought Euler Motors’ mobility business to expand its fleet.

The post From Netradyne To Foxtale — Indian Startups Raised $308 Mn This Week appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The provider of logistics AI solutions, Netradyne has become the first unicorn of 2025 in the Indian startup ecosystem after raising $90 Mn in its Series D funding round led by existing backer Point72 Private Investments. 

In a conversation with Inc42, Netradyne cofounder and CEO Avneesh Agrawal said that the funding round saw the startup’s post-money valuation soar to $1.34 Bn. Before this, Netradyne had last raised $65 Mn in 2022 from Silicon Valley Bank in a mix of debt and equity funding at a valuation slightly lower than $1 Bn. 

Including the latest funding round, Netradyne has raised $317 Mn across four funding rounds from the likes of Reliance, M12, SoftBank, Qualcomm Ventures, and Pavilion Capital, among others.

The unicorn milestone for the startup came in its 10th year of operation. Agrawal founded Netradyne in 2015 after spending a decade working for semiconductor major Qualcomm. Agarwal helmed research and development at Qualcomm, leading its connectivity chipset product line business. 

The Stanford PhD holder partnered with his former batchmate and Qualcomm colleague David Julian to establish Netradyne. The startup, which has offices in California and Bengaluru, aims to make roads safer via its AI-powered fleet safety and video telematics solutions. 

Netradyne provides fleets of all sizes with features such as a video safety camera and fleet performance analytics tracking, as well as driver awareness tools to help reduce risky driving behaviour and reward safe driving decision-making. Its flagship product, Driver.i, provides fleet operators the ability to visually check and assess driver behaviour. 

These visuals are analysed by the startup’s AI offering, detecting distracted driving behaviours like drowsiness, texting, or other such patterns that could lead to fatal accidents. After assessing, the system flashes an audio alert to get the driver’s attention back on the road. 

Agarwal said that Netradyne has a user base of over 3,000 and its systems monitor 700 Mn miles globally every month. He claimed that the startup’s customers see a 30-50% reduction in accidents after deploying its solutions.

With the fresh funding, the startup will continue to focus on its generative AI function and build its own foundational driving model to help identify blind spots and other difficult-to-predict scenarios. 

“We have access to a lot of GPUs because we are running hundreds of thousands of these devices at the Edge. Hence, we are training our own foundational driving model to start targeting corner case scenarios to identify difficult conditions that are hard to predict. Besides, a lot of Indian driving is difficult to anticipate and predict, but I believe that will also start to happen with GenAI models and we can get to the next level of sophistication for Indian driving conditions as well,” he added. 

On the financial front, the cofounder said that the startup clocked a revenue of $210 Mn in 2024, up 65% from 2023. With its increased focus on AI, he said Netradyne is expected to grow its top line over 50% in the short term. 

Netradyne is eyeing profitability in 2025, after which, the founder said, the startup’s board will decide if it should go for an initial public offering (IPO). 

“My goal right now is to drive revenue growth, drive to profitability. Once that is achieved, we may think of going public,” he added.

The cofounder claimed that Netradyne’s services are being utilised by businesses across India, the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. With the fresh capital, Netradyne is also looking to get its services on the roads in Japan, Ireland and several other regions of Europe in the next six months.

While a large chunk of the startup’s revenue comes from the US market, the cofounder believes that the revenue from India will rise rapidly in the coming years. 

For context, the Union Minister of Road Transportation and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, recently said that about 1.8 Lakh fatalities took place in 2024 due to road accidents.

“Clearly, the accident situation in India is not good. However, I have seen positive signs like increasing awareness and interest to rectify this issue in recent times. Thus, we are beginning to get a lot more traction, especially from large enterprise customers,” Agrawal said.

He said that Netradyne has onboarded clients like Nestle, and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) in India, which augurs well for its expansion in the country.

With this, Netradyne has become this year’s first and the 119th unicorn of the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem. 

Interestingly, the deeptech startup, Netradyne, has become a unicorn at a time when there is an increased interest in the space. With an increasing number of deeptech funds being launched, policymakers are also advocating giving this space a high-octane boost in the form of fund of funds startups.

In July last year, Ganapathy Subramaniam and Mathew Cyriac floated Yali Capital, a Category 2 AIF specialising in deeptech.

With a dry powder of INR 810 Cr (around $100 Mn), the fund is focussed on investing across deeptech sector and in segments such as chip design, robotics, aerospace and defence, genomics, space, manufacturing, and the wide world of AI.  

In the deeptech space, Netradyne has joined the flock of unicorns like Krutrim.and 5ire.

[Edited by: Vinaykumar Rai]

The post Logistics AI Startup Netradyne Is The First Unicorn Of 2025 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Fintech company Jio Financial Services (JFS) posted a consolidated net profit of INR 294.78 Cr in the third quarter of the financial year 2024-25 (Q3 FY25), a mere 0.3% increase from INR 293.82 Cr in the year-ago quarter. 

Sequentially, net profit plunged 57% from INR 689.07 Cr. 

JFS’ revenue from operations rose 5.7% to INR 438.35 Cr during the quarter under review from INR 414.33 Cr in Q3 FY24. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the number declined 36.8% from INR 693.50 Cr. 

Including other income of INR 10.54 Cr, the fintech company’s total revenue for Q3 FY25 stood at INR 448.89 Cr. 

Total expenses went up 32.1% to INR 130.75 Cr in Q3 FY25 from INR 98.95 Cr in the year-ago quarter. However, expenses slid 32.3% on a QoQ basis from INR 146.07 Cr. 

The company’s impairment expenses surged to INR 12.3 Cr from INR 24 Lakh in the year-ago quarter. Employee benefit expenses increased to INR 53.5 Cr from INR 33.8 Cr in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Jio Finance, Jio Payments Bank See Steady Growth

Carved out from Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) in 2023, the fintech company houses consumer-facing entities like Jio Finance, Jio Insurance Broking, Jio Payment Solutions, Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings under its umbrella, and the most recent one – Jio Finance Platform and Service. 

It also has other entities like Jio Leasing Services, Jio Payments Bank Limited and three entities with a joint venture (JV) with American investment major Blackrock. 

Jio Finance, the NBFC arm of the company, had assets under management (AUM) of about INR 4,199 Cr as of quarter ended December 2024, an increase of 248% from INR 1,206 Cr in the previous quarter. 

The NBFC’s portfolio includes loans against mutual funds, home loans, loans against property (LAP), and loans on securities. It has presence in 7 cities in India with 9 offices. 

Meanwhile, Jio Payments Bank had 1.89 Mn CASA customers, i.e., customers with either current or saving accounts, as of December 2024. 

The company said that it is expanding its bank representative network as well. During the quarter under review, it had 7,300 representatives.

Meanwhile, Jio Payments Solutions has also been integrated with JioBharat phones to onboard small merchants. It also received payment aggregator licence from the RBI during the quarter under review. 

The company said that Jio Payments Solutions now has direct integrations with 10 banks, enabling it to offer net banking/cards services at competitive rates. 

It has also upgraded to a cloud-native, SaaS-based platform with all payment product features. 

Meanwhile in the insurance space, Jio Insurance Broking has now 54 plans in five product categories like auto, two wheeler, health and life (term and non-term). It has also included new embedded insurance products like solar panel insurance, cyber protection, credit life, property insurance and health insurance. 

Jio BlackRock Asset Management Seeks SEBI Approval

JFS has three joint ventures (JVs) with Blackrock – Jio BlackRock Investment Advisers for wealth management and Jio BlackRock Asset Management and Jio BlackRock Trustee in the asset management space.

In the quarterly filing, JFS said that Jio BlackRock Asset Management filed for final approval from SEBI in December. 

“The application for final approval of registration with SEBI has been made on December 12, 2024, which is under consideration as on date,” the company. 

This comes after it got an in-principle approval from the markets regulator in the preceding September quarter. 

Giving an update on the JV, the company said that its senior leadership and core business teams buildout is in advanced stages. Besides, it is building a unified investment platform for the JV. 

Meanwhile, Jio BlackRock Investment Advisers Private Ltd was incorporated during the quarter under review to offer wealth management services. Last month, JFS named company insider George Heber Joseph as the first chief investment officer of Jio BlackRock Investment Advisers.

Shares of JFS ended Friday’s trading session 0.83% higher at INR 279.05 on the BSE. 

The post Jio Financial Services’ Q3 Profit Flat At INR 295 Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

About a year after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) initiated an inquiry into fintech major Paytm, eight of its officials and directors, current as well as former, have settled the case with the markets regulator. 

Here’re the names and the then designations of these officials and directors:

• Amit Khera – Compliance officer and company secretary (Resigned in March 2023)
• Ashit Ranjit Lilani – Independent director (Still on Paytm’s board)
• Neeraj Arora – Independent director (Left Paytm on June 17, 2024.)
• Douglas Feagin – Non-executive nominee director (Resigned on February 3, 2023.)
• Munish Varma – Non-executive nominee director (Resigned on March 15, 2022.)
• Ravi Chandra Adusumalli – Non-executive nominee director (Still on Paytm’s board)
• Mark Schwartz – Independent director (Retired on August 27, 2022.)
• Pallavi Shardul Shroff – Independent director (Still on Paytm’s board)

The aforementioned individuals paid a cumulative sum of INR 3.32 Cr, without admitting or denying the findings of SEBI, to settle the case. 

Lilani was alleged to have failed to ensure compliance in “letter and spirit” to SEBI’s Regulation 6 (2) of LODR Regulations, 2015, which outlines listing compliances’ that are needed to be followed when going for an IPO. He paid INR 53.62 Lakh.

Independent directors Arora and Adusumali, in the show cause notices issued to them, were alleged to have failed in discharging their duties with “unbiased and independent approach” while taking decisions in the matter of ESOPs allotted to CEO and MD Vijay Shekhar Sharma and his relatives. For this, they paid INR 53.62 Lakh and INR 42.90 Lakh, respectively, to settle the case. 

Further, SEBI alleged that Schwartz, Shroff, Feagin, Varma and ex-compliance officer Khera misrepresented Paytm’s promoter position at the time of filing for Paytm’s IPO. 

The markets regulator said that the board of directors authorised and signed offer documents containing incorrect statements and incomplete disclosures which said the company was professionally managed and had no identifiable promoter, whereas Paytm’s promoter was Sharma. For this, each of the aforementioned people, barring Khera, paid INR 42.90 Lakh. Khera paid INR 11.50 Lakh to settle the case.

Last year, Paytm received multiple notices from SEBI. On July 19, the fintech major received a show cause notice from the market regulator in relation to the 2.1 Cr ESOPs issued to Sharma in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22). 

A month later, the regulator sent show cause notices to Sharma and other board members, who served during Paytm’s IPO, for alleged misrepresentation of facts in the prospectus. Back then, the company clarified that it was in “regular communication” with SEBI and making necessary representations regarding this matter.

On the financial front, the fintech major turned profitable in Q2 FY25, posting a net profit of INR 930 Cr as against a loss of INR 292 Cr in the year-ago period. The profitability came on the back of the company selling its ticketing arm Paytm Insider to Zomato for INR 2,048 Cr in the September quarter. 

In the December quarter, Paytm sold its stock acquisition rights (SARs) in Japanese digital payments firm PayPay Corporation for INR 2,364 Cr ($279.19 Mn) to SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. 

The company is set to disclose its financial numbers for Q3 FY25 on January 20. 

Shares of Paytm ended Friday’s trading session almost flat at INR 895.25 on the BSE.

The post Paytm’s Current & Former Directors, Officials Settle Case With SEBI By Paying INR 3.3 Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL’s) digital arm Jio Platforms posted a 26% increase in its consolidated net profit to INR 6,861 Cr in the third quarter of the financial year 2024-25 (Q3 FY25) from INR 5,447 Cr in the year-ago quarter. 

On a sequential basis, profit grew 5% from INR 6,539 Cr . The EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 16,585 Cr, up 18.8% from INR 13,955 Cr in Q3 FY24. However, EBITDA margin for the quarter dipped 30 basis points to 50.1% from 50.4% in Q3 FY24. 

Revenue from operations zoomed 19.2% to INR 33,074 Cr in Q3 FY25 from INR 27,697 Cr in the corresponding quarter of previous year. On a quarter on quarter basis, operating revenue grew 4.3% from INR 31,709 Cr.

The company attributed the growth in operating revenue to the partial impact of tariff hike, increase in pace of home connections, and accelerating non-connectivity digital services businesses.

Meanwhile, Reliance Jio Infocomm’s standalone profit for the quarter stood at INR 6,477 Cr, up 24% year-on-year (YoY). Its revenue from operations zoomed 16% YoY to INR 29,627 Cr. 

Jio Platforms’ average revenue per user (ARPU) surged to INR 203.3 per month at the end of the quarter as against INR 181.7 in Q3 FY24 and INR 195.1 in Q2 FY25. Total subscriber base stood at about 482 Mn, up 2.4% YoY, at the end of the December quarter.

The company said that the net subscriber addition in the quarter stood at 3.3 Mn with a monthly churn of 2%. It added that the customer addition rebounded to pre-tariff-hike levels in the exit month after transient SIM consolidation. 

Notably, Jio hiked the tariffs for its postpaid and prepaid plans by 12% to 25% from July 3. 

RIL said that Jio’s 5G customer base stands at over 170 Mn and accounts for 40% of the company’s wireless traffic. 

“JioAirFiber has transformed broadband connectivity in the country, especially beyond the top 1,000 cities/towns. More than 70% of incremental JioAirFiber additions are coming from these previously underserved cities/ towns. Overall pace of home connect for Jio has continued to accelerate with a total installed base of about 17 Mn,” the company said.

During the quarter, Jio also launched its AI powered cloud service offering JioAICloud. 

In August last year, RIL CMD Mukesh Ambani unveiled the offering which allows Jio users to get up to 100 GB of free cloud storage space. Moving forward, RIL said that it is looking to offer a rich bouquet of AI services for consumers and enterprises on the back of gigawatt scale AI infrastructure in India. 

“… Rapid scale up of 5G adoption and proliferating fixed broadband beyond Tier I towns over the past year, further strengthens the Digital India mission. Jio will continue to lead the charge in technology innovation by fully embracing the power of AI to create a connected, intelligent future that is truly transformative. This will drive sustained value creation over the next many years,” Ambani said.

Earlier this month, Jio also launched its “5.5G” network, which will offer download speeds of up to 10 Gbps and upload speeds of up to 1 Gbps, developed in partnership with OnePlus.

Meanwhile, RIL said that the digital and new commerce business accounted for 18% of revenue of its retail arm Reliance Retail in Q3 FY25.

The post Jio Platforms’ Q3 Profit Surges 26% YoY To INR 6,861 Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

IPO-bound B2B marketplace Zetwerk has appointed manufacturing industry veteran Vadim Yakubov as the CEO of its US subsidiary Unimacts in a bid to double down on its US market expansion. 

In a statement, the startup said that its US subsidiary contributes 20-25% to its global revenues. It further added that, since initiating operations in the US in 2019, its team supporting operations in the country now stands at 350. 

Recently, Unimacts expanded its operations in the country with the establishment of three factories and six operations centres across the US. 

Unimacts, which is an abbreviation of Universal Industrial Manufacturing Services company, provides tooling, castings, forgings, fabrications and machine shop services to Industrial Original Equipment Manufacturers in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. 

The company sources its products and services from “high quality sources in low cost countries”.

“The US market is crucial to our global growth strategy. With Vadim at the helm of Unimacts, we’re well-positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. His experience and strategic vision align perfectly with ZETWERK’s goal of becoming a global manufacturing powerhouse,” Zetwerk’s cofounder and COO Srinath Ramakkrushnan said on the new appointment. 

Prior to joining the Zetwerk subsidiary, Yakubov helmed designing and manufacturing solutions provider Acument. He also has held top leadership positions at global private and Fortune 500 companies such as Precision Castparts (PCC), Novares Group and Ford during his near three decade career. 

Zetwerk has brought him onboard amid its bid to become a listed new age tech company within this year. On January 15, it was reported that it has shortlisted Axis Capital, Goldman Sachs Group, Jefferies Financial Group, JM Financial, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Kotak Mahindra Bank as bankers for its upcoming initial public offering (IPO). Reports ascertain that the company is likely to raise $500 Mn via the IPO which will value the Bengaluru-based startup at $5 Bn. 

In its latest private funding round in December, the B2B marketplace startup raised $70 Mn at a valuation of $3.1 Bn. The startup plans to utilise the fresh proceeds will fuel its expansion in areas such as renewables, consumer electronics, and aerospace. 

The post Zetwerk Makes New CEO Appointment To Bolster Its US Operations appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Foodtech major Zomato has reportedly signed a lease with the Lodha Group for an over 2.5 Lakh sq ft warehousing facility near Mumbai for its B2B supply chain arm Hyperpure. 

According to a report by ET, Hyperpure will utilise the 2,53,000 sq ft warehousing facility at Lodha Industrial and Logistics Park in Palava for a period of five years. 

The lease will cost the foodtech major INR 85 Lakh per month, with an annual escalation of 5%. The lease is expected to begin on February 15. 

The report added that Zomato paid a security deposit equal to four months of rent at the time of signing the lease agreement in December 2024. 

Zomato supplies fruits, vegetables, groceries to restaurants via Hyperpure. The B2B business has been on a steady growth path over the past few quarters. In Q2 FY25, Hyperpure saw its revenue nearly double to INR 1,473 Cr from INR 745 Cr in Q2 FY24.

In November 2024, Hyperpure launched ‘Express’ delivery service to deliver products in 30 minutes to 4 hours. Prior to that, Zomato also said that it would set up a processing plant to provide value-added food supplies, including sauces, spreads, pre-cut and semi-finished perishable products, to Hyperpure’s restaurant partners. 

The latest development comes more than a month after the foodtech major raised INR 8,500 Cr (around $1 Bn) through a qualified institutional placement (QIP). In its QIP document, the company mentioned that it will utilise about INR 2,137 Cr from the issue towards setting up and running operations of its quick commerce arm Blinkit’s dark stores and Hyperpure’s warehouses.

“Our ability to grow our quick commerce and B2B Supplies (Hyperpure) businesses depend in part on our ability to grow our network of dark stores and warehouses, respectively, in strategic locations,” according to the document.

Zomato has been on a spree of new launches for its other verticals – food delivery and quick commerce – as well. Last week, the company officially announced the launch of Blinkit’s 10-minute food delivery app Bistro. Besides, Zomato also launched a different 15-minute food delivery service in parts of Delhi NCR. 

Shares of Zomato ended Wednesday’s trading session 4.36% higher at INR 244 on the BSE.

The post Zomato Hyperpure Leases New Warehouse Near Mumbai appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Amid a growing investor interest in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in India, former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has called for a deeptech-focussed fund of funds (FoF) for startups. 

Speaking at the Startup Policy Forum’s ‘Startup Baithak’, the G20 sherpa highlighted that there is a need for patient capital for startups operating in the sector to fuel further innovation. 

“We are on the brink of a transformative era and we must capitalise on this. There will be vast possibilities in artificial intelligence, machine learning, electric vehicles, battery storage, quantum computing, robotics, drones, among other such sectors,” he said during the event.  

Kant also highlighted that the Centre has taken some pivotal measures to promote startups in emerging sectors in recent years. The launch of the INR 10K Cr AIMission, INR 76K Cr semiconductor mission, National Quantum Mission, among others, are some examples of the initiatives to promote cutting-edge growth, he said. 

Last year, it was also reported that the commerce and industry ministry was mulling the launch of a deeptech startup policy to provide long-term funds to companies operating in the sector. Under this, the Centre could potentially introduce the policy under an umbrella framework that will serve as a template for startups in the deeptech sector.

In the interim budget last year, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman also announced the launch of INR 1 Lakh Cr fund to fuel the research and development initiatives for entities operational in areas like spacetech, AI, deeptech, and semiconductors.

Besides, Kant also called for revival of the Fund of Funds For Startups (FFS) as the corpus of the existing scheme is about to come to an end. The central government launched the scheme in 2016, committing INR 10,500 Cr for alternative investment funds (AIFs). 

According to the Economic Survey 2023-24, the Centre committed more than INR 10,500 Cr for AIFs under the FFS scheme by the end of the fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24).

Kant said that the fund has provided INR 11,688 Cr to 151 AIFs, which managed to create a capital pool of 81K Cr, and revolutionised early-stage funding in India. 

“Moving forward, we need two fund of funds to promote the startup ecosystem – one would be the revival of the FFS and the second will be a fund dedicated to the deeptech sector. I feel we need the fund of funds earmarked for deeptech startups which require a huge amount of patient capital. This could allow for breakthrough innovations in AI, battery storage, green hydrogen, which require a large sum of patient capital,” he said. 

Recounting startup funding trends of the past year, Kant pointed out that the Indian startup ecosystem saw a fresh capital influx of about $12 Bn. According to Inc42’s ‘Annual Funding Report 2024’, homegrown startups cumulatively netted more than $12 Bn in fresh funding during the year via about 1,000 deals, up over 20% from the $10 Bn raised in 2023.

However, Kant rued that most of the investors in the Indian startup ecosystem are foreign-based private equity and venture capital funds. 

“There is a need for increased domestic sources of capital. In 2024, 75-80% of the total funding came from international sources. There is a huge need for Indian insurance funds, pension funds, family offices to put money into the Indian startup ecosystem. I believe these entities must take up the role of angel investors to back seed stage startups,” Kant said.

Inc42 data shows that an increasing number of domestic funds are participating in the startup ecosystem now. Homegrown investors AngelList India, Stride Ventures, Alteria Capital, and DevC were the four most active startup investors in 2024. 

Kant emphasised the rapid strides taken by the Indian startup ecosystem over the past decade but also criticised instances of corporate governance lapses in recent times. Citing the examples of BYJU’S and Zillingo, he reiterated the need for self regulation for startups. 

“When the startup ecosystem was established, the thought was to not have any excessive regulatory constraints… However, this has led to mismanagement and financial discrepancy. My view has been that startups must adopt a self-regulation framework, must have accountability. Such practice would build trust. While founders are busy innovating, they must also focus on auditing, finance and financial management. These are critical issues,” he added.

The post Amitabh Kant Calls For A Deeptech-Focussed Fund Of Funds For Startups appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Amid the rise in retail participation in the Indian public markets, investment tech platform Groww extended its lead over Zerodha in December 2024. As per NSE data, the IPO-bound startup’s active client base rose by 3 Lakh to 1.32 Cr last month.

Its closest competitor, Zerodha, saw its active clients decline on a month-on-month basis.

As of December 31, the Nithin Kamath-led investment tech platform had an active user base of 81.20 Lakh as against 81.25 Lakh at the end of November. 

Angel One retained its third position, seeing a marginal uptick in its active user base to 77.54 Lakh in December 2024 from 76.31 Lakh in the previous month. Upstox, which was in fourth place, had an active user base of 28.87 Lakh, while Dhan saw an increase in the number of active clients to 9.33 Lakh. 

Fintech major Paytm’s active investor count stood at 7.06 Lakh, slightly lower than INDMoney’s active user base of 7.92 Lakh. Meanwhile, PhonePe Investment Tech’s active user base crossed the 3 Lakh mark and stood at 3.22 Lakh at the end of 2024.

Overall, the total active users in the public markets stood at 5.02 Cr in December.

The development comes at a time when Groww is gearing up for its initial public offering (IPO). As per reports, the startup will file its draft papers for an IPO, which will value it at $6 Bn to $8 Bn, within the next 12 months. As part of the listing plans, it also shifted its domicile to India in May last year. 

On the financial front, Groww reported an 17% increase in its profit in the fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24) to INR 535 Cr from INR 458 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Revenue from operations stood at INR 3,145 Cr, up 119% from INR 1,435 Cr in FY23. 

Meanwhile, Zerodha reported a net profit of INR 5,496.3 Cr on an operating revenue of INR 9,994.5 Cr in FY24. However, its cofounder and CEO Nithin Kamath recently warned that while 2024 was arguably the best year for the brokerage industry, the journey would be difficult in 2025.

Zerodha has also been focussing on strengthening its asset management (AMC) subsidiary, Zerodha Fund House. Earlier this week, the AMC said that its assets under management went past the INR 4,000 Cr mark, with over 4 Lakh investors across its funds as of January 8. Its AUM stood at INR 231.35 Cr at the beginning of 2024.

The post Groww’s Active User Base Jumps To 1.32 Cr In December 2024 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After a blockbuster year for Indian new-age tech companies on the bourses, brokerage firm JM Financial has predicted a bullish outlook for select such companies in the near future. 

In a research report, the brokerage said that there is a high possibility of the inclusion of Paytm in the MSCI India Standard Index, about seven months after it was removed from the index. 

Paytm lost its spot from the index amid a sharp downfall in its share price post the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) action on Paytm Payments Bank. After its removal from the index, Paytm was included in the MSCI India Domestic Small Cap Index. 

With the re-entry, JM Financial foresees a capital inflow of $169 Mn for Paytm. Besides the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company, the brokerage sees a high probability of the inclusion of Coforge, Fortis Healthcare and Coromandel International in the MSCI index. 

Since its exclusion from the index, the fintech major has slowly regained some of the lost ground. While its market cap stood at $2.6 Bn at the time of the exclusion, Paytm’s market cap at the end of Tuesday’s (January 14) trading session stood at $6.03 Bn. 

It is pertinent to mention that the MSCI India Standard Index is due for a rejig on February 11, post market hours. The said changes will be effective on March 3.

Meanwhile, the brokerage also foresees the inclusion of foodtech major Zomato and Jio Financial Services (JFS) in the benchmark index Nifty 50 soon. 

With this, it sees an inflow of $620 Mn to Zomato and $356 Mn to JFS. In its report, the brokerage said that the two players are likely to take the spot of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Britannia Industries on the index. 

Nifty 50 is NSE’s flagship benchmark index that represents the float-weighted average of 50 of the largest Indian companies listed on the platform. The rejig is due in the month of February and will be effective from March 31, 2025.

To get included in the index, a company needs to be a part of the F&O segment of the bourses. NSE included both JFS and Zomato to the segment in November, along with other new-age tech stocks like Delhivery, Paytm, Nykaa, and PB Fintech.

 It is pertinent to note that Zomato was also included in BSE Sensex in November this year. On November 22, the BSE also included the foodtech major and JFS to the BSE Sensex 50 index. 

The post Paytm Likely To Re-Enter MSCI India Index, Zomato May Get Place In Nifty 50 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

About a year into their operation, Zerodha’s asset management (AMC) subsidiary, Zerodha Fund House, claims to have moved past INR 4,000 Cr total asset under management (AUM) with over 4 Lakh investors across its funds. 

In a post on X, Zerodha’s founder and CEO Nithin Kamath said that in 2024, which was the first year for Zerodha AMC to act as India’s direct-only AMC, the AUM growth came without the company “actively pushing anything.” 

For context, the company claims that Zerodha Fund House had only INR 231.35 Cr AUM at the start of the year as against the INR 4,287.24 Cr as of January 8. 

In a detailed blog post recounting Zerodha Fund House’s growth trajectory in 2024, its CEO and COO Vishal Jain said that the fund house was launched a year ago with “a single-minded focus to help more Indians access the capital markets with a strong belief that our products need to be simple, transparent, and affordable for investors”. 

Over the past year, the AMC has primarily built mutual funds across three major segments, LargeMidcap Index Funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Fund of funds (FoFs). 

Besides, Zerodha also forayed into the debt segment with “India’s first Growth-NAV-based Liquid ETF” named LIQUIDCASE, Gold ETF, Gold FoFs and launched two equity ETFs (TOP100CASE and MID150CASE). 

As of now, the company has a total number of seven schemes under its belt to which over 4 Lakh investors from more than 15,000 pincodes in India, Jain claimed. He further said that more than half of the investors come from beyond the top 30 cities of the country.  

Moving forward, the AMC is looking to double down on its play in the passive funds. For context, passive funds are a type of mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) that replicate the performance of a specific market index. Jain said that Zerodha is currently planning on launching more ETFs and passive funds. 

“The good thing about being passive-only is that it aligns the incentives for both the customers and us. For the customers, it means access to good, low-cost products, and for us, it eliminates the risks that have recently made headlines,” Kamath said in his post on X.

Moving forward, Zerodha Fund House will also be prioritising its bid to build better connections with its investors and focus on investor education in smaller towns.

Pertinent to mention that after getting final regulatory approvals in August 2023, Zerodha AMC launched its maiden mutual funds in October 2023. Back then, Kamath had said that the move to venture into the space was largely led by consideration around increasing retail investor participation in Indian markets and building simple, easy-to-understand mutual funds. 

Meanwhile, Zerodha’s bread and butter brokerage business continues to trail behind new incumbent Groww. At the end of December 2024, Zerodha had an active investor count of 81.2 Lakh on its platform as against 1.32 Cr investors on Groww. 

On the financial front, Zerodha’s net profit surged 88.95% to INR 5,496.3 Cr in the financial year ending March 2024 (FY24) from INR 2,908.9 Cr in FY23. Its consolidated revenue also increased 37.16% to INR 9,372.1 Cr from INR 6,832.8 Cr in the previous fiscal.   

The post Zerodha AMC Arm’s AUM Zooms Past INR 4K Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

New-age tech stocks slumped and saw their cumulative market capitalisation decline by $10 Bn amid a correction in the broader Indian equities market this week.

Barring Menhood, IndiaMART, Nykaa, MapmyIndia and Yudiz, 26 of the 31 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage fell in a range of 0.83% to over 16% in the second week of January. 

Kids-focussed omnichannel retailer FirstCry was the biggest loser, with its shares falling  16.35% to close at INR 538.30 this week. 

On January 6, the company informed the exchanges that it has sought approval of its shareholders for “remuneration towards 51,80,000 Employee Stock Options” granted to its managing director and CEO Supam Maheshwari. 

On Friday, after market hours, the company said that the GST proceedings against it on the notices received from the Karnataka GST authorities for FY21 and FY22 have been concluded. The explanations and submissions provided by the company for the FY22 notice were accepted and found in order by the GST authorities. 

For FY21, it said, “… In response to excess ITC claims (3B vs 2A), the company has reversed IGST of INR 29.74 Lakh out of input credit ledger and paid IGST of INR 56,303 along with interest of INR 44,287 for short payment of reverse charge mechanism. Except for the above liability, other discrepancies with respect to short taxes paid and interest liability have been resolved and the proceeding initiated under section 73 of CGST/SGST Act 2017 has been dropped…”

PB Fintech was the second biggest loser this week, with its shares dropping 16.20% to INR 1,856.15. On January 2, the fintech company forayed into the healthcare segment by incorporating a new subsidiary PB Healthcare Services Private Limited. On the back of this development, the company’s shares touched a fresh all-time high of INR 2,254.95 on January 6 (Monday). 

SaaS company Unicommerce hit a new all-time low at INR 157 during the intraday trading on January 10. Its shares ended the week slightly 7.41% lower at INR 157.35. Tracxn and DroneAcharya also touched their all-time lows this week. Zaggle, CarTrade, Fino Payments, TAC Infosec, Go Digit, were among the other losers this week. 

Meanwhile, the broader Indian market plunged this week. While Sensex declined 2.33% to end the week at 77,378.91, Nifty 50 dipped 1.57% from last Friday to end at 23,440. Multiple factors contributed to this bearish sentiment, including the downward revision in Indian GDP growth estimates to 6.4% for FY25. According to Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services, this revision casts a shadow over the economy’s momentum. 

Besides, the week also saw some of the listed companies disclose their financial numbers for Q3 FY25, which according to experts were underwhelming. Adding to this was persistent selling by FIIs due to high valuations and global headwinds. 

“However, a glimmer of hope emerged as the initial set of results from the IT sector showed promise. Looking ahead, corporate earnings will be in the spotlight, with major companies, including IT giants, releasing their Q3 results. Macroeconomic data, such as India’s inflation rate and industrial production figures, will also play a crucial role in shaping market direction. On the global front, updates on the US economy, particularly labour market data and inflation trends, may impact FII flow,” Nair added. 

Now, let’s take a look at the performance of the 31 new-age tech stocks this week. 

The total market cap of the 31 new-age tech companies under Inc42’s coverage stood at $88.38 Bn at the end of the week as against $98.68 Bn at the end of the previous week.

Swiggy, Zomato Fall Amid Rising Competition

Shares of foodtech majors Swiggy and Zomato declined this week amid increasing competition and regulatory issues.

Shares of Zomato ended the week 10.89% lower at INR 243, wiping off about $3.5 Bn from its market cap.

On Friday, the company officially announced the launch of Blinkit’s 10-minute food delivery app Bistro. Earlier in the week, the foodtech major also launched a different 15-minute food delivery service in parts of Delhi NCR. 

Amid all these, Jefferies gave Zomato a ‘Hold’ rating this week along with a price target (PT) of INR 275.

Its rival Swiggy got an ‘Outperform’ rating from Bernstein and a PT of INR 635.  

Adding to its list of experiments, the company separated Swiggy Instamart to a standalone app, launched new app Pyng, and a 15-minute food delivery app SNACC. 

Besides quick commerce, Zomato and Swiggy are also competing in the quick food delivery space now. The likes of Zepto, Swish and Zing are also seeking a share of this pie. 

Meanwhile, the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) is firming up plans to approach the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for an intervention against the launch of 10-minute food delivery apps by Zomato and Swiggy.

Paytm, MobiKwik Also Take A Hit

Despite some positive developments, shares of both fintech companies declined this week. While Paytm fell 13.77% to end the week at INR 847.05, shares of MobiKwik fell 8.44% to INR 549.10. 

The companies were in the news for the following reasons this week:

• Paytm retained its third position in the UPI landscape in December 2024. 
• Bernstein gave Paytm an “Outperform” rating with a PT of INR 1,100, citing its ability to effectively monetise its core payments business.
• MobiKwik reported a net loss of INR 3.59 Cr in Q2 FY25. Sequentially, the company was able to trim its loss by about 45% from INR 6.62 Cr. Its EBITDA stood at INR 6.80 Cr in Q2 FY25, down 37% from INR 10.8 Cr in the year-ago quarter. 

The post $10 Bn Wiped Off! New-Age Tech Stocks Bleed Amid Broader Market Slump appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Indian startup ecosystem seems to be firing on all cylinders after an initial lull over the past two weeks. Over the past week, the fresh capital infusion in the world’s third largest startup ecosystem went up exponentially to $432.4 Mn across 20 deals, about 30 times the $14 Mn raised by startups in the first week of 2025 via a measly 5 deals. 

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [ Jan 6 – Jan 11]

Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

• The week saw the first mega funding deal materialise for an Indian startup in the form of healthtech unicorn Innovaccer’s $275 Mn Series F fundraise. On the back of this, healthtech emerged as the most funded startup sector this week. Besides Innovaccer, BrainSinghtAI and Zoplar also raised $5 Mn and $3.4 Mn this week.
• Besides, sectors fintech, cleantech and ecommerce all saw three funding deals materialise this week, leading to fresh capital infusion of $48.9 Mn, $14.2 Mn and $13.3 Mn respectively.
• After months of speculations, Ritesh Agarwal increased his stake in his startup OYO with a capital infusion of $65 Mn via his venture capital firm Redsprig Innovation Partners. This funding round made travel tech the second most funded sector this week.
• This week’s most active investor was VC firm Alteria Capital, investing in BrainSightAI’s $5 Mn pre-Series A funding round and Pratilipi’s $1.2 Mn funding round.
• Seed stage funding zoomed this week to $2.6 Mn, up 225% from the $787K raised by startups at this stage last week.

Funds Launches This Week

• NBFC Avendus launched its third private credit fund with a target corpus of up to INR 4,000 Cr through its asset management arm Avendus PE Investment Advisors.
• Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu launched an Angel fund, ‘Telugu Angels’, dedicated to the state’s entrepreneurs’ bid to scale globally. 

Other Developments Of The Week

• Eyewear major Lenskart is said to have initiated talks with bankers for a $1 Bn IPO that could value it in the range of $7 Bn to $8 Bn. Its IPO could hit the Indian bourses toward the end of the next financial year.
• Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) in partnership  with IIMA Ventures have jointly launched the third cohort of women-focused fintech programme to benefit female entrepreneurs in the country.
• EV startup Zypp is looking to raise $35 Mn from investors like Nuvama Private Wealth and other Southeast Asia-based funds.
• Early-growth technology investor Z3Partners bought a stake worth $8.2 Mn in SaaS startup Mintoak from its early backers HDFC Bank and Pravega Ventures.
• National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has suggested setting up an INR 10,000 Cr fund for early-stage deeptech startups.
• BluSmart will be raising $50 Mn in its Series B funding round at a pre-money valuation of $335 Mn from some of its existing investors including responsAbility Investments AG, Sumant Sinha, MS Dhoni Family Office, among others.
• LEAP India has acquired logistics company CHEP India for an undisclosed amount to solidify its supply chain footprint in the country.
• Beauty and skincare startup WOW Skin Science is said to be on the lookout for a buyer at a reduced valuation of $250 Mn.
• Early-stage VC South Park Commons (SPC) is planning to raise $40 Mn for its India-focused fund over the six months after it entered the South Asian market.
• B2B manufacturing and supply chain enablement startup Groyyo is in talks to raise about $40 Mn, primarily in equity, from Tiger Global and other investors at a valuation of about $200 Mn.
• D2C startup The Whole Truth Foods is in talks to raise around $25 Mn in its Series C funding round at a valuation of $240 Mn from investors Peak XV Partners, Accel Partners, Matrix Partners, Sauce.VC. 

The post From Innovaccer To Beyond Snack Indian Startups Raised $432 Mn This Week appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Reliance Retail-owned hyperlocal search engine Justdial’s net profit surged 42.7% to INR 131.50 Cr in the quarter ended December 31, 2024 (Q3 FY25) from INR 92.11 Cr in the same quarter last year. 

However, profit declined 14.3% on a sequential basis from INR 153.52 Cr. 

Justdial’s top line expanded both on a year-on-year (YoY) and quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis. The company’s net revenue from operations stood at INR 287.33 Cr in Q2 FY25, up 8.4% YoY and 0.9% QoQ.  The company claims that this is its “highest ever” quarterly revenue. 

Including other income of INR 77.41 Cr, the company’s total income for the quarter stood at INR 364.74 Cr.

Its EBITDA rose 43.4% YoY to INR 86.6 Cr, while EBITDA margin expanded to 30.1% from 22.8% in the year-ago quarter. 

Further, Justdial said that its total traffic in the quarter rose 15.3% YoY to 19.12 Cr. However, it declined 3.5% QoQ. The company said this decrease was on expected lines due to “impact of festival weeks” during the quarter. 

In its reasoning for the sequential decline, Justdial said that the dip was on expected lines due to “impact of festival weeks” during the quarter. 

“Our focus remains on driving top line growth while maintaining operational efficiency, as reflected in our Q3 results. By enhancing our offerings for users and providing businesses with easy-to-use, advanced tools, we are creating sustainable growth for all stakeholders. Stories of growth of small and medium businesses through Justdial continues to inspire us to keep pushing boundaries and unlock opportunities for MSMEs,” Justdial’s chief growth officer Shwetank Dixit said. 

As of December 31, 2024, the total number of businesses listed on Justdial stood at 4.75 Cr.

This marked a 14.2% YoY and 2.8% QoQ uptick. 

The company attributed the increase in its revenue in the quarter to its focus on enriching platform content to drive traffic. It said that the quarter saw the implementation of various strategies, including creation of in-depth information, comprehensive catalogues, buying guides and price ranges for different services.

“Out of total listings, 3.18 Cr listings were geocoded as on December 31, 2024, up 20.4% YoY. Total Images in listings stood at 21.60 Cr, up 23.0% YoY and 4.6% QoQ,” the company claimed. 

In addition, the company said that it has undertaken a new sales strategy in the quarter under which it is moving away from cold calling to a targeted and multiplatform approach, using social media, email, messaging apps, and in-platform interactions to engage businesses at various stages of the buying journey. 

With this, Justdial’s aim is to achieve a cost-effective sales process by building channels of high potential leads.

A Look At Justdial’s Expenses

The company managed to trim its expenses to INR 215.57 Cr in the quarter, down 1.6% YoY and 0.6% QoQ. 

Employee Expenses: This was the biggest expense for the company. In Q3, Justdial spent INR 173.17 Cr on its employees, down 3% from INR 178.51 Cr in the year-ago quarter. 

Other Expenses: Under this head, the company’s spending rose 5.3% to INR 27.56 Cr from INR 26.17 Cr in the year-ago quarter. 

Shares of the company ended 3.75% lower than the previous close at INR 1,034.60. 

The post Justdial Q3 Profit Zooms 43% YoY To INR 131.50 Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named global venture capital firm Sequoia Capital in an FIR based on its preliminary enquiry into Congress MP Karti Chidambaram and others into the processing and approval of proposals by Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

The investigative agency has alleged that the VC firm suspiciously transferred funds to Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd (ASCPL), an entity controlled by Chidambaram and his close aide S Bhaskararaman.

Besides, liquor major Diageo has also been named in the FIR for such suspicious payments.

Peak XV Partners, which separated from Sequoia Capital US in 2023, declined to comment on the issue. At the time of the alleged transaction, the entity was known as Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia. 

“Enquiry revealed that out of various proposals of FIPB enquired into, it was found that Diageo Scotland and Sequoia Capital have suspiciously transferred funds to ASCPL an entity controlled by Karti Chidambaram and his close aide S. Bhaskararman,” the FIR said. 

The investigation revealed that Sequoia Capital submitted an application for FIPB approval on October 13,  2008 for acquiring a 26% stake in Platinum Power Wealth Advisor for INR 9.52 Cr. This transaction was approved by the then finance minister P Chidambram, the father of Karti, on November 24, 2008. 

“Enquiry revealed that at the time when the FIPB proposal of Sequoia Capital for FDI was moved, some suspicious share transactions at exorbitant price took place between Sequoia Capital, Mauritius and ASCPL through Vasan Health Care. Instead of directly acquiring shares of Vasan group, the shares were routed through ASCPL in order to benefit Karti P Chidambaram as total of INR 22.50 Cr was paid by Sequoia to ASCPL (INR 7,500 per share) in lieu of these shares as against the purchase price of INR 30 Lakhs,” the FIR read. 

These transactions saw Sequoia’s Mauritius entity acquiring shares of the healthcare company in different tranches.

The CBI alleged that the transactions at “exorbitant” price were not in the ordinary course of business but a part of conspiracy to benefit Karti Chidambaram, who could influence the public servants.  

Even after separating from the US entity, Peak XV remains one of the most prominent investors in the Indian startup ecosystem. The firm has invested in prominent startups like Zomato, BYJU’S, Ola, Meesho, CRED, Honasa Consumer, among others. 

After the separation, Peak XV inherited a portfolio of investments of over $9.2 Bn across 13 funds in June 2023.  

From this investment portfolio, Peak XV realised nearly $1.2 Bn from exits during the 15 months after separation. 

The post CBI Names Sequoia Capital In FIR For Suspicious Payments To MP Karti Chidambaram appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Grappling with operational uncertainties and mounting debt, Nasdaq-listed rental car marketplace Zoomcar seems to be on track to resolve some of its troubles. In a statement on Thursday (January 9), the company claimed to have attained its “highest-ever” unaudited and unreviewed contribution profit in December 2024. 

The Bengaluru-based company claimed to have realised a contribution profit of $495K in the month, which it says was sufficient to cover its operational costs in India. The company attributed the upticks in its financials to 17% growth in bookings in December. 

It is pertinent to mention that these are Zoomcar’s estimates and are subject to revision until it reports its full financial and business results for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2024-2025 (Q3 FY25) on February 12.

Founded in 2013 by David Back and Greg Moran, Zoomcar operates a one-stop shop platform for renting self-driving cars. It connects car owners with guests, who can choose from a selection of cars for use at affordable prices. The company listed on Nasdaq in December 2023 via a SPAC deal.

In the September quarter of 2024, Zoomcar managed to cut its consolidated net loss by 72.9% to $3.35 Mn from $12.40 Mn in Q2 FY24. Meanwhile, its revenue also dipped 16.7% year-on-year (YoY) to $2.23 Mn in the quarter from $2.68 Mn in the September quarter last year.

This was the third straight quarter of decline in revenues. Besides, the company also saw significant changes in its top deck, as well as its offerings, in 2024. Things were so bad that Zoomcar said that it was unsure of its future at the end of the September quarter. 

All of these also resulted in a sharp decline in the company’s share price. On Thursday, the stock was trading at $1.78 on the Nasdaq.

So, how is the company dealing with its turmoil? In a conversation with Inc42 last month, Zoomcar’s interim CEO & COO Hiroshi Nishijima outlined a three-pronged strategy to address the challenges — improve cashflow, repay debt, and reduce expenses. 

Fixing The Financial Health

On November 14, Zoomcar informed the SEC that it has “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern. It reasoned that it posted a loss of $5.88 Mn loss in the six months ended September 30, 2024 and had a negative working capital of $35.02 Mn. 

Further, it also pointed out its inability to pay back its financial creditors as a major concern. Nishijima, who assumed the role of CEO in June 2024, said that he has been focussing on improving the cashflow of the company by increasing the total number of transactions processed by Zoomcar. 

“I understand that we need to grow our revenues as a listed company. But from a priority point of view, the major concern is to grow the number of bookings. For this, our major strategies include slight discounts in our prices and promoting shorter duration bookings,” he said.

He added that the company’s average booking duration was about two days before June 2024, and shorter duration bookings can help make more profits.

When a car is rented for a lesser number of hours, it can cater to multiple users per day. To bring in more customers, Zoomcar has been offering different forms of discounts over the last year, including a joining discount of 10%. 

Moreover, Zoomcar has brought down the costs for short-term bookings to just INR 499 for 4 hours as opposed to an average cost of INR 3,200 for renting a car for a day. The interim CEO claimed that this helps the company build an initial connection with their customers. To build a lasting relationship, Zoomcar has introduced bigger discounts on second-time bookings. 

Meanwhile, the company has also been undertaking multiple experiments with its product stack in recent times. Last month, it forayed into ride hailing services with the pilot launch of Zoomcar Cabs in Bengaluru. In November 2024, it launched a subscription service to offer users self-drive cars for extended periods, starting with a minimum 7 days to more than 30 days.

Nishijima said that the focus on short duration bookings is only for the short term, as the company would revise the prices once it is able to cover its recurring expenses. As of December, he said that the company was making profits from every booking. 

But, he refused to give an approximate timeline by which Zoomcar can post an EBITDA positive quarter. 

Plans To Repay $35 Mn To Investors

Despite the slight uptick in its cashflow, Zoomcar’s management arrived at the conclusion in November that the company would not have sufficient funds to meet its obligations within a year if it failed to raise additional funding.

To tackle this, Zoomcar is looking to raise an external funding of $30 Mn to meet its financial obligations till November 14, 2025. Of this $30 Mn, the company raised $9.15 Mn via private placement in November 2024. 

Nishijima informed that the company was in ongoing discussions with its business partners to reschedule the debt payment in a “mutually agreeable way”. 

Zoomcar is likely to raise the remainder of the amount in tranches, the interim CEO said. The sizes of these tranches would depend on how the talks with its partners pan out. He added that the company is banking on improvement in its business for this. 

“From the business partners’ point of view, if they strongly believe that this company will turn around the situation, Zoomcar will bounce back and sustain for a long time. Given that our business has actually improved in the last six months… many of our partners, especially whose outstanding amount is big, have agreed for the discussions to reschedule payments,” he said.

Stability In The Top Deck

As its troubles rose, Zoomcar also saw a number of exits at the top level. In June 2024, its board decided to terminate the employment agreement of its cofounder and the then CEO Moran. 

“On June 20, 2024, Greg Moran, the company’s chief executive officer, was terminated from his role. Pursuant to Mr. Moran’s employment agreement, Mr. Moran is required to resign from the board of directors of the company (the “Board”) as a result of such termination,” the company said in a filing.

Following this, Moran filed a case in a US court against Zoomcar, Sternaegis Ventures and Aegis Capital Corporation, alleging that he was dismissed from his position without any specific reason. He also claimed that he did not receive the compensation due to him, which amounted to more than $238K. 

A month after Morgan’s exit, Zoomcar also bid farewell to its president Adarsh Menon. He put in his papers within six months of joining the company in July. Besides, its chief financial officer Geiv Dubash also left the company in June 2024 after a near three-year stint. 

Nishijima claimed that the two departures after Moran’s exit happened on an amicable note. Moving forward, he foresees stability in the leadership team, which would help the company improve its state of affairs. 

“Now our leadership team is shaping out to be like a long-serving, homegrown leadership team,” he said.

[Edited By Vinaykumar Rai]

The post Can Hiroshi Nishijima’s Strategy Bring An End To Zoomcar’s Financial Woes? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Healthtech unicorn Innovaccer has raised $275 Mn in its Series F funding round. The round, which was a combination of primary and secondary transactions, saw participation from B Capital Group, Banner Health, Danaher Ventures LLC, Generation Investment Management, Kaiser Permanente, and M12.

The startup plans to utilise the fresh capital to fuel its expansion bid, introduce new artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud capabilities and scale its developer ecosystem. Further, it also plans to add multiple copilots and agents to its offerings, including utilisation management, prior authorisation, clinical decision support, clinical documentation, care management and contact centre, Innovaccer said in a statement. 

“This investment propels us into the next chapter of transforming healthcare with AI. By harnessing the full potential of artificial intelligence, we are empowering our customers to redefine care delivery, unlock unprecedented insights, and achieve outcomes that truly matter,” Innovaccer cofounder and COO Sandeep Gupta said. 

In May last year, it was reported that the healthtech major was looking to raise $250 Mn. The startup was then said to be in talks with US-based health and insurance major Kaiser Permanente for the fundraise. It was also reported that it would raise the funds at a valuation of $2.5 Bn to $3 Bn, lower than its previous valuation of $3.2 Bn. 

However, the startup, in the statement, didn’t shed light on the valuation at which it raised the fresh capital. 

Founded in 2014 by Abhinav Shashank, Kanav Hasija and Sandeep Gupta, Innovaccer analyses healthcare data to provide actionable insights to healthcare providers, hospitals, insurance companies and other organisations and businesses. It counts the likes of CommonSpirit Health, Kaiser Permanente, Banner Health, among its clients. 

It has raised $675 Mn in funding till date from investors like Tiger Global, Lightspeed, B Capital Group, Microsoft’s M12 fund, OMERS Growth Equity, among others. 

Last year, the startup acquired two companies – digital marketing and CRM platform for healthcare Cured and healthtech company Pharmacy Quality Solutions. 

Innovaccer’s funding marks the first mega deal of 2025. Last year, the number of funding deals of over $100 Mn remained stagnant year-on-year at 24. 

According to investors, one of the reasons for the stagnancy in mega deals last year was inflated valuations. Many investors are of the opinion that mega deals can go up in 2025 if startups cut their valuation from their peaks, which they attained during the funding years of 2021 and 2022. 

On a broader scale, the Indian startup ecosystem is expected to see a 25% increase in funding to $15 Bn in 2025 compared to $12 Bn raised across 993 deals in 2024. 

The post Healthtech Unicorn Innovaccer Bags $275 Mn To Expand AI Capabilities appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Where do the events of 2024 leave India’s fintech ecosystem? 

While the fintech opportunity is said to have grown 6X in the past ten years, the incessant regulatory challenges as well as concerns around profitability have hamstrung even the most scaled-up and capitalised companies. 

Prominent examples from the past year include the derailing of Paytm’s banking arm after the RBI intervention on compliance lapses, while Sachin Bansal’s Navi Finserv saw a disruption in its lending business due to similar action against digital lenders.

On the other hand, changes by SEBI left the likes of Groww and Zerodha staring at a bearish future. 

When it comes to the fortunes of PhonePe, CRED, Google Pay and others, profitability is the single-biggest hurdle in the way, even as the UPI opportunity has grown beyond Indian territory and expanded overseas. 

Fintech Predictions For 2025

Considering the mixed bag that was the past year for Indian fintech, will we see the scales tilt towards a particular outlook in 2025? Will fintech startups make the most of the IPO opportunity, and which areas will see the biggest disruption from AI?  

These are some of the most pressing questions for fintech startups today — especially as they deal with the entry of giants such as Jio Financial Services, and competition from regulated banks also eyeing super app success.

More Reverse Flipping & IPOs In Store For Fintech

The bull run for the Indian public market in the past few years has opened the doors for more new age tech stocks listings in the coming year, with the fintech ecosystem expected to take the front seat.

Last year, we saw MobiKwik join Paytm, Fino and PB Fintech in the public markets, and now the likes of Pine Labs, Groww, Razorpay among others are looking to get there too. Besides NBFCs Aye Finance and Avanse Financial Services who have already filed for IPOs, we can potentially see listings of PayU, InCred and Pine Labs this year.

As a result, several of these startups are in the process of flipping back to India, while Groww has already redomiciled to India from the US. 

“For fintechs with a majority India market focus, it is definitely pragmatic to be domiciled in India and debut their listings here first. We are seeing some of India’s largest private fintechs in the process of changing their domicile for this purpose, and this re-shoring is a sound strategy for them to continue building for the long term. Their future will be India first,” 3one4 Capital’s founding partner Pranav Pai opines. 

Meanwhile, lendingtech startup Fibe’s cofounder and CEO Akshay Mehrotra sees more fintech listings towards the second half of 2025. 

Regulatory Challenges For Fintech To Ease Off In 2025

In the past year, the RBI was particularly active when it came to curtail the rapid expansion of fintech in India. Key actions included tightening norms for P2P lending, establishment of independent self regulation organisations to ensure compliance, as well as startup-specific intervention.

Needless to say, some of these regulatory challenges have caused significant distress within the fintech ecosystem. Recounting the tough regulatory times, Fibe’s Mehrotra joked, “Compliance cost is $20 Mn so early stage startups are going to be tougher to do.” 

In a similar vein, others pointed out that it is near impossible to build long term enduring value in any environment when the rules change this often. “While there are certainly some fintechs that have been careless with the existing regulations, the shifting boundaries due to such rapid regulatory change is definitely causing deep distress amongst India’s innovators,” 3one4Capital’s Pai added.

At the end of the year, Sanjay Malhotra replaced Shaktikanta Das as the new governor of the RBI. In his first media interaction since taking up the role, Malhotra placed emphasis on technology and innovation shaping the future of the financial services industry. 

Moving forward, Fibe’s Mehrotra foresees more mature businesses taking up the centre stage with many of the recent regulatory checks and balances in place.

“With the regulatory systems in place, it is now tougher to be in the industry and we are more likely to see only serious players emerge and continue to grow. Moving forward, I don’t see many hiccups from a regulatory front for the fintech ecosystem,” Mehrotra said. 

Focus Will Shift To Profitability

The fintech sector has been an investor favourite over the past few years. The past year was also the same as fintech took about 21% of the total $12 Bn Indian startup funding pie. However, investor interest in the sector has slid in the past couple of years — the total tally of $2.5 Bn last year was 19% lower than 2023. 

Despite this, multiple investors Inc42 spoke to are bullish on fintech investments in 2025. A key reason for this uptick is the increasing focus for fintech companies to become profitable. “Fintechs will surprise the ecosystem in the next cohort on this metric, and the promise of the Indian ecosystem in this sector will be interesting when it expresses this way,” Pai said. 

Investors see breakeven or profitability happening far earlier than expected for the next cohort of fintech entities. Further, valuations of startups, which jumped up in 2022, have also come down to more realistic numbers. 

VC firm Playbook Partners’ managing partner Dushyant Singh foresees better funding for growth or late stage fintech companies particularly, especially since this group of startups is focussed on unit economics and profitable growth. He is particularly bullish about backing startups at these stages operating in the wealthtech space. 

The Super Apps Race: Competing With Adani, Reliance In 2025

As predicted last year, we saw multiple large umbrella fintech entities gain prominence by offering multiple products to end users in a single platform. 

While UPI-leader PhonePe was able to zoom its revenue past the INR 5,000 Cr mark on the back of its super app play, other new emerging players also made headlines for their offerings in 2024. 

A prominent new name in 2024 was Flipkart-backed super.money. After a beta launch in the middle of the year, the super app has been able to aggregate a significant user base for its credit offerings and UPI payments business. 

Here it’s important to point out that deep pocketed conglomerates like Adani and Reliance have been bolstering their fintech play over the past couple of years.

In the past year, Adani Group’s super app Adani One launched co-branded credit cards as well as opening doors to entry in the ecommerce and payments space on the back of government-backed ONDC. 

Meanwhile, Reliance-backed Jio Financial Services also launched its super app ‘JioFinance’ in 2024, offering digital banking, UPI transactions, bill settlements, and insurance advisory.

Both these conglomerates are expected to deepen their fintech offerings, so we foresee a new dimension to the super app discourse in 2025, however, their success will depend largely on how well they capitalise on UPI payments at the top of the acquisition funnel.

Despite larger players on the prowl to capture a piece of the fintech pie, industry experts believe that it is not a sign of threat for startups but rather an opportunity. 

“Entrance of big players in the super app space is more of an affirmation of an intrinsic opportunity in the ecosystem. There is a lot of scope of penetration of financial products in India, serving enough headroom for all to grow. While there will be more intense competition from these new big players, the market is unlikely to see dominance from any one particular entity,” Playbook Partners’ Singh added.

AI To Become A Fintech Necessity In 2025

The past year, we have seen all sorts of headlines emerge from the heated conversation around the use of AI. Fintech companies have also begun the journey looking to optimise costs and make more efficient systems. 

A glaring example was Paytm where CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the company leveraged automation and AI to trim its workforce. As a result, the customer support costs declined by 60% in the first two quarters of FY25 

Fibe’s Mehrotra believes that companies need to critically analyse the applicability of AI for their operations and build or get external help to build their AI tech stack in order to survive. 

Despite this, a large majority of companies are either looking to partner with established AI vendors or utilise a hybrid approach (a combination of build and buy) to build their tech stack. 

This presents the opportunity for new companies to build fintech-specific AI products. Early stage startups like OnFinance AI are looking to change the financial industry’s workflow efficiency through the power of AI in recent times. 

In particular, B2B models are coming up to help businesses in underwriting insurance, personal investment advisories, content marketing, among others. 

Investors are particularly bullish on early stage AI-based fintech players. Speaking with Inc42, 100X.VC’s partner Ninad Karpe said that AI has now emerged as a key governing factor for the VC firm’s early stage fintech investments. 

While the firm is planning to back 60-80 startups in 2025, a key chunk of these investments will be for startups offering fintech products and services, he added.

Respite On The Cards For Indian Crypto Ecosystem? 

Despite taxing crypto gains, the government has not come close to regulating cryptocurrencies in any way, but the WazirX crypto heist and major losses for investors might force the regulatory hand in 2025.

Plus, there seems to be a ray of light of hope for the Indian crypto ecosystem. India reaffirmed its leadership position in terms of the global cryptocurrency adoption for the second consecutive year in 2024. The country is now home to 11.8% of crypto developers and 5.4% of Web3 creators worldwide.

Trading volumes have gone up in sync with the skyrocketing Bitcoin value. 

In this year, the cryptocurrency ecosystem is poised to get a major boost from the US federal government. Industry experts are anticipating more clarity on the crypto front from the regulator, given the recent push of the RBI on launching its crypto-based Central bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

To expand its business scope in India, crypto major Binance has plans to make crypto trading more secure and robust. 

“Looking ahead to 2025, the focus will be on increasing knowledge and trust within the crypto community, fostering stronger collaborations with authorities, and enhancing blockchain utility to address real-world challenges,” Vishal Sacheendran, head of regional markets at Binance, said. 

VC interest is also expected to return to crypto startups focussing on infrastructure and enterprise applications, rather than just trading platforms. 

[Edited by: Nikhil Subramaniam]

The post What’s In Store For Indian Fintech Ecosystem In 2025? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

IPO-bound OTT streaming platform Ullu Digital’s profit after tax (PAT) declined 16% to INR 12.68 Cr in the fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24) from INR 15.14 Cr in the previous fiscal.

The decline in profit came despite an increase in its top line. Ullu’s revenue from operations rose 7% to INR 99.67 Cr during the year under review from INR 93.15 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Including other income of INR 51.51 Lakh, total revenue crossed the INR 100 Cr mark. 

The OTT platform filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) in February 2024 for a listing on the BSE SME platform. As per the draft papers, it is looking to raise INR 135 Cr to INR 150 Cr through its initial public offering (IPO), which will solely consist of a fresh issue of 62.63 Lakh shares.

However, after filing the DRHP, the OTT platform found itself caught in regulatory issues due to its erotic content. In February last year, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) urged the electronics and IT ministry (MeitY) to take action against the OTT platform.

In a letter to the ministry on February 27, NCPCR chairperson Priyank Kanoongo said that the ‘Ullu’ application, available on both the Play Store and the iOS, contains “extremely obscene and objectionable” content which is accessible even to children.

This triggered an investigation conducted jointly by SEBI, corporate affairs ministry, and MeitY. 

The controversy resulted in delays in Ullu’s IPO plans. Last month, its founder and CEO Vibhu Agarwal told exchange4media that the company is now expecting to go public by March 2025.

Where Did Ullu Spend?

The OTT platform’s total expenses surged 15% to INR 83.49 Cr from INR 72.33 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Employee Benefit Expenses: Ullu’s spending on its employees rose 41% to INR 11.89 Cr from INR 8.43 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Purchase Of Stock-in Trade: The OTT platform spent INR 27.33 Cr under the head, a decline of 13% from INR 31.54 Cr in FY23. 

Advertising Expenses: The startup cut its ad costs by 26% to INR 14.96 Cr from INR 20.14 Cr in FY23. 

Ullu competes with the likes of Amazon’s MX Player, ALTBalaji, among others, in the crowded Indian OTT market.

The post IPO-Bound Ullu’s Profit Drops 16% To INR 13 Cr In FY24 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

If 2023 was the year when generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) took the world by the storm, 2024 was all about enterprises adopting the technology in their day-to-day operations.

As a result, last year saw many founders take the AI route for their new ventures, making the AI-led disruption apparent in the Indian startup ecosystem. Investors, too, were more than happy to back new AI startups. 

Such was the clamour for GenAI startups that Polygon cofounder Sandeep Nailwal’s  blockchain-based AI startup Sentient Labs bagged a massive $85 Mn in seed funding while Cultfit cofounder Mukesh Bansal’s venture Nurix AI secured $27.5 Mn in seed funding last year. 

Buoyed by such big-ticket rounds in early stage AI startups, total seed-stage funding zoomed 31% year-on-year (YoY) to $893 Mn in 2024. 

This high interest in AI-led startups is expected to continue in 2025 as well. According to Inc42’s annual investor survey “The Pulse Of Tech”, a majority of startup investors are on the lookout for startups in the AI and GenAI segment. 

The survey, which gauged the priority list of over 75 investors in 2025, saw about 56% pick GenAI/ AI startups as their top investment picks. 

Commenting on this, marketing firm GrowthJockey’s founder and CEO Ashutosh Kumar said, “In 2024, AI startups captured a substantial portion of investor attention and resources, reflecting the industry’s confidence in AI’s transformative potential. AI is expected to remain a cornerstone of venture strategies, with firms leveraging AI-driven analytics for decision-making and focusing on AI-native companies across various sectors”.

But, while AI is seen as native to the enterprise tech sector, the emerging technology is witnessing adoption and use cases across the board. 

Marketing & Sales To See The Biggest AI-Led Disruption

AI was the buzzword among founders across the board in 2024. The effect was such that startups across sectors like healthtech, deeptech and ecommerce quickly embraced the emerging technology to leverage the first-mover advantage and fine tune their AI models. 

But, while the tech is poised to disrupt industries moving forth, startup founders believe that GenAI will have the biggest impact on marketing and sales functions. Over 39% of the surveyed founders said they believe that GenAI will have the biggest bearing on these verticals. 

This sentiment is in line with the increasing use of AI by companies to drive marketing and sales campaigns. For marketing professionals, AI’s utilisation emerged as a norm this year. According to a report by Infosys, titled CMO Radar Report 2024, 96% of 2,600 marketing executives across 14 industries said they were deploying AI in their activities.

Moving on, about 26% founders surveyed by Inc42 foresee chatbots and AI assistants taking over traditional support roles.

An example of increasing usage of AI for these roles is that of Paytm. The fintech major leveraged AI to optimise its employee expenses in 2024. During its earnings call for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2024-25 (Q2 FY25), Paytm CEO and founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said that the company’s support staff costs declined by 60% over the previous 10 months.

How Are Companies Building Their AI Tech Stack?

With AI now moving ahead from just being a buzzword to a critical business component, its adoption is no longer a choice but a necessity. 

As companies continue their tryst with the new tech, a critical question is what approach will they take to integrate AI in their operations. According to 100+ founders of seed, growth and late stages startups, most are trying a hybrid approach. 

When asked about the preferred method for incorporating the tech, a third of the surveyed startup founders said they are taking a hybrid approach, meaning a combination of building and buying AI models. 

Meanwhile, 28% of the founders are relying solely on the AI solutions offered by established AI vendors or companies. Further, 18% are trying their hands on off-the-shelf GenAI products or services. Only 16% of startups have in-house capabilities to address custom GenAI solutions, highlighting the complexity and resource demands of such an undertaking.

[Edited by: Vinaykumar Rai]

The post Majority Of Investors Bullish On AI Startups For 2025 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Over two months after quitting edtech unicorn upGrad, its cofounder Mayank Kumar has launched a new edtech startup, BorderPlus. 

As per the new startup’s website, it helps the talent pool in India land “nursing” jobs in healthcare facilities in Germany. 

“Founded by Mayank Kumar, co-founder of upGrad, BorderPlus is shaping the future of global talent mobility… We connect with highly skilled, culturally adept healthcare professionals to seamlessly meet your staffing needs across borders,” the description on its website and LinkedIn profile reads.

The startup will aid skilled professionals secure conditional offer letters and complete visa formalities. To apply for the job opportunities, the applicants would need a nursing degree and B1/B2 German proficiency.

As per reports, Kumar has joined hands with hospitality major OYO’s former president of European operations Ayush Mathur to float the new entity. However, neither the startup’s website nor Mathur’s personal social media handles point towards his association with BorderPlus. 

Inc42 has reached out to the startup to seek more details about the new venture. The story will be updated on receiving responses from BorderPlus. 

In a recent interview with CNBC-TV18, Kumar said BorderPlus would start with healthcare opportunities and later move to tech opportunities globally. 

Commenting on the motivation behind launching the startup, he said, “In India, you can’t monetise blue collar and grey collar enough because the starting salaries here are INR 15,000 – INR 20,000 per month. But the moment they get deployed internationally, their salaries go up to about INR 3 Lakh – INR 4 Lakh per month. That was the thought process. In this process, you solve the problem that the developed economies are facing in terms of skilled manpower and you solve the employment problem in India.” 

Kumar left upGad in October to found this new venture, leaving upGrad’s operational charge in the hands of cofounder Ronnie Screwvala. Back then, it was also reported that he was pitching his new startup, focussed on placing skilled Indian labour abroad, to investors. 

Following his departure from the company, the startup netted $60 Mn from Singapore state investment firm Temasek at a flat valuation of $2.25 Bn. Further, Screwvala also acquired Bharti Enterprises’ stake in the company for $20 Mn.

The post upGrad Cofounder Mayank Kumar Launches Talent Mobility Startup ‘BorderPlus’ appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After showing signs of revival last week, the Indian equities market declined sharply on Monday (January 6) on concerns over human metapneumovirus (HMPV) .

In line with the decline in the broader market, shares of 28 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage declined in a range of 0.34% to just under 8%. 

After being on a bull run since the second week of November, shares of travel tech major ixigo slumped 7.86% to end today’s session at INR 164.65 on the BSE. With this, ixigo emerged as the biggest loser today. 

Market intelligence platform Tracxn was the second biggest loser, with its shares slipping 6.70% to INR 74.49. This was slightly higher than the stock’s 52-week low of INR 72.41. 

Meanwhile, shares of MobiKwik declined 6.65% to INR 559.80, a day before it is scheduled to release its financials for the second quarter of the ongoing fiscal year.

Fintech major Paytm’s shares also fell 1.36% to end at INR 968.95. The bearish investor sentiment was despite positive brokerage reports about the company. On January 3, Bernstein gave the company’s shares an ‘Outperform’ rating and a price target of INR 1,100. 

Other losers of the day included Swiggy, Zomato, RateGain, TAC Infosec, PB Fintech. 

Despite the bearish sentiment, shares of Nykaa, EaseMyTrip and MapmyIndia ended today’s session in the green. 

After bleeding in the past few weeks, shares of online travel aggregator EaseMyTrip emerged as the biggest gainer. The stock surged 4.87% to end today’s session at INR 16.23 on the BSE. 

The uptick came after its ex-CEO and cofounder Nishant Pitti confirmed that there will be no more “promoter selling” from now on. Pitti sold 1.4% of his stake in the company prior to stepping down from the position of the company’s CEO. 

Meanwhile, shares of beauty and personal care major Nykaa jumped 2.30% to end at INR 171.60 after the company shared strong financial projections for Q3. In an exchange filing, the company projected a strong performance for Q3 FY2025 with consolidated net revenue growth likely to be higher than mid-twenties. 

Overall, bears ate away more than $3.5 Bn from the market capitalisation of new-age tech stocks. The m-cap of 31 new-age tech stocks stood at $95.08 Bn at the end of today’s trading session as against $98.68 Bn on Friday. 

HMPV Scare For Markets

In the broader market, benchmark Sensex fell 1.59% to 77,964.99. Nifty 50 declined 1.62% to end the day at 23,616.05. 

A key reason behind the fall in the market today was the detection of two cases of HMPV in Karnataka by the Indian Council of Medical Research via routine surveillance for multiple respiratory viral pathogens.

Commenting on the market performance, Hrishikesh Yedve, AVP of technical and derivatives research at Asit C. Mehta Investment Intermediates, said, “Nifty started positively but faced heavy selling due to the HMPV virus scare, closing sharply lower at 23,616. Technically, on the daily chart, Nifty formed a big red candle, indicating heavy selling pressure. As a result, the index has broken the 200-Days Simple Moving Average (200-DSMA) of 23,900.” 

Meanwhile, Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services, said that uncertainty about US president-elect Donald Trump’s policies, Fed’s hawkish stance on future rate cuts, and a strong dollar further cast a dark shadow.  

“Additionally, the initial Q3 consensus earnings estimate suggests a potential gradual recovery in domestic corporate earnings, which could explain the domestic market’s underperformance compared to global markets led by premium valuation,” he added.

The post Over $3.5 Bn Wiped Out From M-Cap Of New-Age Tech Stocks Amid Blood Bath In Market appeared first on Inc42 Media.