Daybreak

In this episode, we turn the spotlight on one of the most powerful yet elusive figures in Indian e-commerce: Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the everywhere-all-the-time CEO of Flipkart. Flipkart, backed by Walmart, was once India’s great e-commerce hope. But lately, the tides have been turning. Walmart is flying high, outperforming Amazon globally, dominating grocery delivery, and raking in ad dollars with...

For the longest time, getting accepted to Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley startup accelerator was like getting a golden ticket for your startup. It was suddenly on the map not just in India but in Silicon Valley, too.  For Indian founders who made it, the story of success began with a journey west. Set up in Delaware, impress YC, and get some of that Silicon Valley shine. But what happens when th...

In a recent, 10-page note recapping its investing journey, Info Edge (India) founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani proudly, and justifiably, called Zomato and Policybazaar “breakout successes”, “winners”, and “outliers”. A few days earlier, Zomato, now renamed Eternal, had released its sobering financials for the three months ended March.  So what’s Infoedge doing about it? Apart from its own businesses –...

Indians are hungry for luxury watches. Just in 2024, even as exports of Swiss watches declined globally, they surged 25 per cent in India.  Interestingly, the player winning in this fast-growing market is not a legacy business house like Tata or Reliance, rather it is little-know Chandigarh-based retailer, Ethos.  What sets it apart is the strong relationships it has built with ultra-luxury watch...

Dream Sports, the company behind Dream11, just bought a piece of Cricbuzz from Times Internet for $50 million. It also bought a stake in Willow TV, a cricket broadcaster in the U.S. As you probably know, Dream11’s core business is fantasy sports. But no thanks to new taxes and regulatory friction, their business isn’t looking so good lately. Revenue projections are down, growth is slowing, and the...

For nearly a decade, Swiggy and Zomato have fed our hunger and dominated prime real estate on our phone screens, leaving very little room for any serious challengers. Most who tried to break in got their fingers burnt before they even got started. But now, a new player has decided to throw its hat into the ring.   This is a player that has some experience taking on titans, though the last time aro...

The luggage industry seems to have undergone quite a makeover in the last few years. Back in the day, VIP and Safari were synonymous with the plain black and grey suitcases. But now, luggage is as important as the clothes you wear–it’s part of the whole airport look. Startups like Mokobara, Nasher Miles, Assembly, and Uppercase have turned luggage into an aspirational lifestyle product with smart...

Last month, The Ken set out on a quest to understand how deep AI’s roots have grown in Indian companies. We asked India’s employees across industries and experience levels the extent to which they were using AI tools on a day to day and how it had changed workplace dynamics for them.  Nearly 500 people took our survey. Nine out of 10 of them said they had begun using AI tools, even if it meant pay...

The Indian wealth-management industry is booming and everyone wants a piece of the action. But here’s the twist: as the industry explodes, the people managing all that wealth have become the real prize. In a business that caters not just to the top 1%, but the top 0.01% of India’s elite, having the best wealth managers on your roster isn’t just important—it’s everything. And one four-year-old upst...

Elon Musk’s Starlink is just months away from launching in India. Amazon’s Kuiper will follow in 2026. The satcom green light is finally here — the regulator’s long-awaited guidelines are out, and the Department of Telecom has drawn up its strict new rulebook. Surprisingly, the satellite players aren’t blinking. Even more surprising? After years of resistance, Jio and Airtel have suddenly struck d...

Like much of the world, India is heavily reliant on China for its rare earth supplies. In FY25 alone, we imported 870 tonnes of rare earth magnets, worth over ₹300 crore. China controls about 60–70% of global rare earth production and around 90% of the world’s refining capacity.  Decades ago, while other countries hesitated over environmental and social costs, China made a ruthless, calculated bet...

Protein is having a moment in India. Once reserved for gym-goers and bodybuilders, it’s now showing up in everyday foods like idli, rotis, chips, lassi, even kulfi. And consumers are buying in. Behind this craze is a $1.5 billion strategy that’s reshaping how India eats. Food brands saw a gap in a country where nearly two out of three households are protein deficient. And they turned it into a gol...

Indian finserv is no koi pond. It's a shark tank. And now, some of the biggest sharks in the tank – payment aggregators like Phonepe, Razorpay, Cashfree and Paytm – are all narrowing in on the aggregator of aggregators, Juspay.  In this episode, we go behind the scenes of one of the biggest fintech standoffs of the year. On one side are the aggregators, who power payments for millions of online me...

Of the 5,000 graduates offered jobs in 2022—the majority of whose joining was delayed by two years—755 have been laid off so far for failing to clear tests. The assessments this time were tougher than usual, said five trainees and ex-employees The Ken spoke to. The threshold for passing was raised from 50% to 65%. On top of this, new material was added, and the number of questions was increased. T...

Tesla’s story in India has been more like a stalled engine than a roaring electric debut—despite years of headlines, high-level meetings, and hopeful tweets. While the Indian government did slash import duties on premium EVs from a staggering 110% to a friendlier 15%, it wasn’t enough. Because for Tesla, this isn't just about taxes. It is about suppliers, standards, scale, and most importantly, ti...

In this special episode, hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose are joined by Soumya Rajan, founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors, India’s largest multi-family office and wealth advisory firm. The conversation begins with a simple but important question: what does financial empowerment actually mean for women with wealth? Over her decades in the world of wealth management, Soumya began noticing...

Electric two-wheeler maker, Ather Energy, listed on the bourses on earlier in May, but its IPO was subscribed just 1.4X—a modest showing for a company once seen as a premium EV pioneer. The lukewarm response reflected investor fatigue, sparked by Ola Electric’s volatile stock performance, the Blusmart funding controversy, and global supply chain headwinds. Despite a strong product portfolio and a...

Pyng, launched on 15 April, is quite a departure from Swiggy’s core food-focused business. The service marketplace, uncharted territory for Swiggy, is offering services of “verified professionals” (think therapists, chartered accountants, and even energy healers).  No, it’s not a modified version of Urban Company. At least, not yet. For one, the latter offers standardised services comprising blue...

The landscape is pretty bleak. In the race to produce more Ivy League-worthy students, Indian schools are selectively opting to teach IB. Teachers, in turn, find themselves shifting between the Cambridge and IB syllabi, often trying out things they aren’t trained for. Students and parents, meanwhile, are running in circles trying to find an able tutor after spending Rs 5–20 lakh on their child’s e...

When Rohan, a 35-year-old software engineer, signed up for a Rs 1 trial on a learning app called Seekho, he thought he had nothing to lose. He cancelled the subscription within weeks but money was still being deducted from his account months later.  UPI Autopay, the rising star of India’s subscription economy is quietly letting apps to keep charging users long after they think they've cancelled. F...

Nearly a decade ago, Hotstar, Netflix, and Amazon Prime entered the scene and positioned themselves as the anti-TV. No fixed showtimes. No endless ad breaks. No re-runs you had to sit through just because nothing else was on. For the first time, we were in control. TV became personal. It became on-demand. And best of all—it was ad-free. It felt like there was no going back. But now something has s...

Back in 2016, the Internet and Mobile Association of India set up an all new club for what was then a very small cohort of digital leaders in corporate India. It was called the all-India Chief Digital Officer club.  Back then, there were only about five-six CDOs that were members. The point of the initiative was to give legitimacy to this new, emerging role. But soon enough, the initiative fizzled...

For decades, the whole process of getting a loan approved was infamously painful and long winded. But now things have changed. Getting a loan is a whole lot faster than before. And that’s because of the disruptor to end all disruptors — artificial intelligence. A bunch of companies have entered the scene with specalised AI tools to speed up different aspects of the loan-approval process.  In fact,...

Family offices—the ultra-rich who used to hand over their money to VCs and wish them well—are now wondering why they ever bothered. Why did they pay someone to do what they could do themselves, on their terms? Their primary gripe? The funds are not returning money.  Of course, the so-called middlemen in this scenario aren't too pleased. After all, they are losing a substantial amount of business i...

At first glance, things seem to be really looking up for India’s very own budget-friendly hotel chain Oyo. It’s had some pretty big wins in the last few months.  So why then is its eventual IPO still the subject of such widespread speculation?  The Ken's Deputy Editor Seetharaman G put it quite well in the latest edition of his newsletter on the Indian stock market, ‘Long and Short’. He said – ‘fe...