Daybreak

Last month, India’s second largest automaker – Hyundai –  went public. But this was not your run of the mill IPO. This was widely speculated to be the largest public listing ever seen in the Indian stock market. So there was naturally a lot of hype around it.  But on October 17, just hours before Hyundai’s public issue was set to close, most stock market circles across the country were stumped. Th...

A new generation of designers is on the rise. These designers are expected to be  a lot more than just “one trick ponies”. The new-age ‘Designer X’ is expected to bring  a little bit of everything to the table. They understand the basics of sustainability, how their designs would impact things like climate change and culture. And they would also generally know a little bit of coding too.  And that...

* This episode was originally published on July 12, 2024 Have you ever heard of a 'f*** off fund'? Or better yet, do you have one? For the uninitiated, it is a sum of money that women should ideally set aside to get out of a difficult situation – think toxic job, abusive relationship or family situation, you get the drift.  The term was coined by freelance writer, Paulette Perhach, in 2016. We rec...

In the 2024 financial year, Apple sold products worth $8 billion in India. This was a third more than the previous year. But how did a premium company like Apple that hates giving discounts sell products worth 8 billion dollars in a country as price sensitive as India? Apple obviously knew that its phones were unaffordable for most people in India? It found an answer was easy financing. After the...

For a whole decade, Ola and Uber dominated the cab-hailing market. But cut to 2024 and that scenario is shifting. Both these companies are drifting. And a third contender – Rapido – is making the most of it.  Both homegrown Ola and US-based Uber are dealing with a unique set of problems. The whole ride-hailing business seems to have taken a backseat for Ola, which is now knee deep in the electric...

Welcome to the world of luxury-lifestyle management, where firms like RedBeryl, Indulge Global, and Quintessentially play the role of concierge for their ultra-wealthy clients, making the impossible possible. Now this sort of thing has become even easier for the rich. Because their wealth managers are also taking care of some of these requests.  It isn’t a one -off thing. Companies like RedBeryl,...

Zomato planning to raise 8,500 crore rupees again. This comes just three years after its grand IPO where it had raised almost the same amount. The company's stock prices have doubled in the last ten months.  Interestingly, this fundraise is going to be through a qualified investment placement or QIP when a listed company raises capital from domestic markets without the need to submit any pre-issue...

If all the women of the world had a collective wallet where we could put in a penny for every time we heard the words “your biological clock is ticking,” we could move to Venus and run our own planet. But as unfair as it may be, it is true. There is an ideal time period in a woman’s life when she can have a baby. Or when she is the most “fertile.” Unlike men who are biologically not limited by suc...

For a country that boasts of its digital public goods infrastructure like Aadhar and UPI, it is a wonder why telecom has been so ignored. After nearly 1500 crore rupees of was reportedly lost to digital fraud in the financial year 2024, the govt’s Trai is finally scrambling to catch up with CPAN or the Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) service, its own version of Truecaller.  Truecaller, the Swedis...

Late last month, the Supreme Court made a very strong statement about NRI quotas at medical colleges. It essentially said that the whole thing was a fraud.  But the thing is, since the Supreme Court called it out, the practice has only gotten murkier. So The Ken reporter Alifiya Khan conducted an investigation. She scoured several social networking sites only to find countless posts promising seat...

There is an unusual one-of-kind competition brewing within the Indian fintech space. It is so disruptive that its leaving founders and chief executives of some of India’s biggest fintechs feeling pretty intimidated and also helpless.  The funny thing is, the brains behind this new competitor that’s left the whole industry feeling pretty blindsided is the Reserve Bank of India itself. It is a wholl...

Earlier this month, CRED, released its financials for the year ended March 2024 at a press conference. Cred claims to have about 13 million monthly active users. For the financial year ended March 2024, it saw revenue rise more than 60% to nearly $300 million, and losses shrink by around 40% to about U$70 million. Plus, its monthly transacting users grew by more than 30%.   Shah said how it's the...

A little more than a week ago, we read a really strange piece of news . Apparently, an expert committee recommended the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to ban the over the counter sale of emergency contraceptive pills like i-pill and Unwanted 72. They suggested  women should be only allowed to access it with a doctor’s prescription because of concerns over side effects.  This was weird fo...

Back in 2004, two sisters, Kainaz and Tina Messman, decided to turn their life-long passion for food and baking into a full fledged business. They set up Theobroma, a small cafe tucked away in a corner of Mumbai’s posh Colaba. Today, there are more than 200 Theobroma outlets in over 30 cities across the country.  The bakery chain’s evolution has been nothing short of remarkable. It has managed to...

Today, most conventional or slow clothing brands like Lee, Wrangler, United Colours of Benetton, Pepe Jeans and Levi’s are facing a tough new reality where they aren’t just trying to outperform each other. They are also up against fast fashion brands that are now dominating the industry.  In the process, many of these slow brands have lost relevance in the larger scheme of things.  In this episode...

Earlier this year, Zomato acquired ticketing platform Paytm Insider. With this, Zomato was able to take its 'going out' strategy to the next level.  Since 2018, Zomato has been holding live events. You have probably heard of its its massive carnival-style event called Zomaland. The idea behind it is simple: a big part of going to a movie, or a music festival, or pretty much any live event is the f...

The PM’s internship scheme wants to provide 10 million internships to freshly minted students over the course of the next five years. Students from premier institutes like IITs and IIMs or students with professional degrees like CA, CMA or masters are not allowed to apply. The idea is to address India’s problem of youth unemployment by making students from lower socio-economic backgrounds employab...

Back in 2014, Ashoka University introduced India to the concept of a liberal arts education. The private research university, tucked away in Sonipat, Haryana, came along at a time when the cracks in India’s higher education system were starting to become pretty glaring.  It positioned itself as everything a conventional Indian college was not.  Ashoka promised to offer  ‘holistic, liberal, multidi...

About a month ago, news broke about Reliance's plans to merge Disney+ Hotstar with JioCinema after their Star-Viacom18 merger. While the merger is pending approvals from the Competition Commission of India, data from Google Play Store data shows Disney+ Hotstar had over 500 million downloads while JioCinema had over 100 million downloads. While the idea makes sense from a consumer's perspective wh...

So far, buying medicines in India has been a complete minefield. Allow me to elaborate with the help of a completely plausible hypothetical scenario. Say you catch the flu one day and need 75 mg of the antiviral drug Oseltamivir. More often than not, we don’t really check the price tag of these drugs. But what if I told you the prices can swing anywhere between Rs 30 and Rs 125 per capsule, depend...

Back in the day, being from one of India’s prestigious boarding schools – the likes of Doon or Mayo – was the ultimate stamp of honour.  Most of these schools were established close to a century ago, during British rule. And for the longest time, they were infamous for taking that legacy pretty seriously.  In fact, that was exactly why they remained the go-to destination for India’s elite. But now...

Sarvam, a generative AI startup based out of Bangalore, managed to raise more than $50 million from investors like Peak XIV and Khosla Ventures, in less than 6 months after it was launched last year. Last month, Sarvam released a range of new multilingual products—Al agents, voice and text models, and a workbench aimed at legal professionals. Enterprise customers who used Sarvam's services are sat...

Every time you take a domestic flight and don't have to break a fixed deposit to buy a ticket, you have Captain GR Gopinath to thank. In 2003, he  launched Air Deccan, India's first budget airline.  Before that, only the rich and powerful could afford to fly. So, planes were like mini 5-star hotels – you would be waited on hand and foot, would have access to luxurious lounges, get served gourmet f...

Phone calls from Bajaj Finance offering loans are almost inescapable and the non-bank has been facing quite a backlash for it. But telecalling has been an enduring sales channel for the company which boasts of a loan book worth nearly $30 billion. And despite the massive size of its loan book, it’s been growing at a phenomenal rate.  But now, Bajaj Finance has become a prisoner of its own growth r...

Not so long ago, Birkenstocks were considered the antithesis of high fashion. For the longest time, the 250-year-old German brand’s characteristic chunky sandal was seen as nothing more than an orthopedic shoe meant for hippies and old people.  And then, everything changed. In the last decade or so, Birkenstock had a major glow up. It all started with the brand deciding not to settle for being jus...