Daybreak

Not long ago, Suhail Sameer, former BharatPe CEO had said UPI will do to credit what the likes of companies like BharatPe did to debit a few years back. India has more than 960 million debit cards in the country and only about 85 million credit cards.   But conditions in the credit market are headed towards a disruption because of UPI and there’s one area of the whole credit ecosystem where it is...

More than 70% of fraudulent banking transfers in India are KYC-linked scams. A senior official at the Financial Intelligence Unit, a national agency responsible for analysing data on suspect financial transactions informed The Ken that KYC frauds amount to over Rs 900 crore ($108 million) per year. One such fraudster who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity said, ““KYC is an easy trick to pul...

Have you noticed how easy it has become to get loans? Whether you want to buy a whole house or you want to buy a pair of shoes, you can take an EMI for whatever you want. And of course, in India, an aspirational country, this means we finally have a way to attain the standard of living we have dreamed of. In the year that ended in March 2023 household debt saw its second-highest surge since indepe...

Swiggy has always been proud of the culture of innovation that it has fostered over the years for its employees. In fact, it is this very approach that helped it achieve the coveted unicorn status. But with the IPO scheduled for this year and its pursuit to profitability, innovation is no longer being encouraged. It has become way more challenging for newer projects to take off.  And though it is...

From shadow-banning, content flagging, suspension and even account deletion, content creators are grappling with a variety of censorship methods on social media platforms—all in the name of maintaining community guidelines. But with social media platforms relying more and more on AI and machine-learning tools identify and remove violating content, even content aimed at creating sexual, social, and...

After the pandemic years, Kota’s coaching industry saw an unprecedented boom. Money was pouring in from everywhere–from edtechs to investors. In the last five years, Kota saw about 2 lakh engineering and medical aspirants, on average, arrive from across the country. Kota runs on stiff competition not just among the students but also among the scores of institutes that host and prep them. But since...

As we know, Paytm* is in deep trouble but you know what they say about one man’s loss? It is another man’s gain. When the RBI  killed  Paytm Payments Bank’s services, it also meant it could not to accept deposits or top-ups in its customer accounts, including wallets and Fastag. Fastag is India’s electronic toll-collection system. Its basically a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology-en...

A few years ago, Blinkit, the grocery delivery platform that was formerly known as Grofers, was on the verge of dying. It was the first year of the pandemic and the demand for quick commerce was at its peak. Grofers wanted to join the bandwagon but it didnt have the money. A year later in June 2021, it got its shot in the arm with a $120 Mn infusion from Zomato. Next thing we knew, Grofers had bec...

On Friday, Google removed a bunch of popular apps like Bharat Matrimony, Shaadi.com,Naukri.com  and even some dating apps like Truly Madly and Quack Quack from its Playstore. The tech giant said it was because these apps were not compliant with its billing policy. The impact was immediately felt in the stock market. For example, shares of Info Edge that owns Naukri and 99 acres fell 3% on Saturday...

Tata Motors' EV subsidiary, Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Limited (TPEML), is prepping for a potential IPO in the next year or so. It wants to raise $1-2 billion. In the first half of 2023, Tata Motors dominated 75% of the passenger EV market share in India despite relentless competition from the likes of Mahindra & Mahindra and other newer rivals.  The auto-maker's revenue for FY23 stood a...

It was National Protein Day in India on February 27. The government initiative is meant to increase awareness about the importance of protein in India, a country where eight out of every ten of people don't meet their daily protein requirement. According to the ICMR every individual should consume at least 48 grams of protein everyday.  But after the pandemic, people are actively looking to includ...

2024 is going to be the hottest month on record. Weather watchers have described the rise in new heat records around the world as “insane”, “total madness” and “climatic history rewritten” India is also witnessing a surge in the demand for electricity in general. and the crisis is at its peak in the summers. As incomes rise and populations grow, especially in the world’s hotter regions, the use of...

Advertisements on the food-delivery giant Swiggy are only growing in number and variety— from banners and icons to full-blown video ads. If you're wondering what id going on, it's all a part of Swiggy's preparation for its upcoming IPO. It needs to boost its revenue and ads are a great way to make more money with every order. But while Swiggy is doubling down on its four year old advertising busin...

India’s nutraceutical market is estimated  to be worth $4-5 billion and the government expects it to be worth almost five times more in the next two years. As important as it is to monitor the rapidly growing market, regulations have not really kept up. In a post-pandemic world where preventive healthcare has become all the rage, a dangerous situation is being created. Health supplement makers are...

Bengaluru is best known for two things: great weather and terrible traffic. The Silcon Valley of India is the sixth slowest city in the world! How come no one has come up with some innovative tech-based solutions? Actually, they have.  But you’ll be surprised to know that one the key reasons why the city's traffic troubles never end is because the focus has mostly been only on tech driven efforts....

While most startups were facing a reckoning earlier last year with mass layoffs, Licious, the meat delivery platform, was sitting proud, unaffected. Both the founders, Hanjura and Gupta, were giving interviews talking about how their company had made no job cuts and how they did not want that kind of bad karma. It became the anomaly in a market that was seeing a bloodbath that going on all around....

The Reserve Bank of India has barred Paytm from continuing all its banking services via Paytm Payments Bank after February 29. It's been operational since 2017 and its services include current and savings accounts, fixed deposits with partner banks, and balance in wallets, UPI, and FASTag, among other services. The RBI has basically said it cannot take any more deposits or conduct credit transacti...

Season 3 of one of the country’s most popular reality TV shows, Shark Tank India, premiered on January 22, 2024. The show has given rise to a significant demand for startup investing. Investors are able to put in as little as Rs 5000 via online fundraising platforms like Tyke Invest and Infubiz. They offer investments in startups through Community Subscription Offer Plans. But these fundraising ca...

The results for the latest quarter for Freshworks are out and the US-based Saas company has beaten Wall Street estimates. It posted a revenue of nearly $600 million for FY 2023. Its losses, meanwhile, have narrowed by over 40%. Just a year ago, the story was slightly different. In the same quarter in 2023, the company saw a decline in its net dollar retention rate. Even though the free cash flow w...

It wont be a stretch to say that the Meftal Spas is life-changing for those who suffer from dysmenorrhea. The medicine which is a combination mefenamic acid and dicyclomine was launched more than 40 years ago by Blue Cross Labs, an Indian pharma company. Meftal Spas enjoys the lion’s share of the market at nearly 90%. But at the end of November last year, the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC),...

It took Bajaj Finance over 15 years to become the most valued NBFC in the country. And then came along Jio Financial Services Ltd (JFSL) and took the no. 2 position in a span of just two months. It is currently valued at more than $17 billion. Its all set to take the top space. Currently, the company is on a serious hiring spree and it seems to have taken a particular liking to former ICICI Bank e...

When the govt of India came up with the budget, taxpayers were given 2 options: move to the new tax regime or continue with the old one. The tax rates in the new regime were clearly lower. But despite this, most chose to stick to the old regime. Even with comparatively higher tax rates the old tax regime has remained popular amongst Indian taxpayers. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom...

It was Dominoes that made delivery under 30 minutes a thing. Before Swiggy and Zomato came along, Domino’s was more or less the only place you could order in from. It showed Indians that pizza could be cheap and also enjoyed in our own houses.   Jubilant, the company that runs the Dominos franchisee in India has nearly 3/4ths of the pizza market share which is also why it is among the first to be...

Byju’s financials for the Financial year 2022, are finally out. Almost 2 years late. And unsurprisingly, it doesn't paint a very pretty picture. The edtech giant posted a consolidated loss of more than 8000 crore rupees on an operating revenue of around 5000 crores.  And that’s not all…its valuation has dipped from about 22 billion dollars in the last funding round to less than a billion now. Its...

Happy Republic Day, dear listeners. Today is a public holiday but if you're still tuning in, here is an older episode of Daybreak you might like: All the twists and turns in the journey of startups have been well-documented since VC funding began drying up over the past year or so. In the first half of 2022,  Indian startups received more than $17 billion dollars. But a year later in 2023. they ju...