One quick thing: Microsoft commits $17.5 billion, its largest investment in Asia, for India's 'AI first' future

In today’s newsletter: 

• Blinkit’s quick-commerce bubble warning amid Swiggy’s QIP and Zepto’s upcoming IPO
• Why Namma Yatri is riding on government-backed platforms
• Groww co-founder on how Gen Z is driving stock-market investing

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Ten-minute deliveries, billion-dollar burns — and a stopwatch ticking on cheap capital.

Blinkit’s boss says the party’s loud — but the lights could come on fast.

• Albinder Dhindsa warns that quick commerce is running on a widening imbalance between ambition and capital

With losses piling up and funding tightening, he says corrections tend to be “very swift.”

• India’s dense cities help unit economics — but logistics efficiency and funding still decide survival

Blinkit won’t sprint blindly, even if rivals are flat-out running.

“We will not chase growth for the sake of growth,” Dhindsa said, drawing a red line on reckless discounting.

Expansion will stay category-selective, only where Blinkit earns a real “right to win.”

• He expects the next phase to be shaped by consolidation, sharper category focus and leaner incentives

As blink-and-you-miss-it commerce gets pricier, Swiggy goes back to the markets.

• Swiggy’s Rs 10,000-crore QIP is underway at a floor price of Rs 390.51 — a 1.2% premium to its last close

• The stock jumped over 3% after approval, ending at Rs 397.70 as investors gauged its fresh firepower

Zepto, meanwhile, has raised $450 million and is IPO-bound for early next year, keeping the capital race very much alive.

Dig deeper

Namma Yatri’s Bengaluru boom hits a tougher road: growth now rides on government platforms. 

Namma Yatri’s launch in late 2022 hit a perfect moment: a ban on Ola-Uber auto services, shrinking incentives, and driver resentment, and Bengaluru loved the new player in the segment. 

• But outside the city, the magic didn’t repeat 

Rapido and Uber rolled out their own zero-commission categories. Drivers began asking: “What more do you offer?”

To stay in the game, Moving Tech Innovations, Namma Yatri’s parent, turned to state-backed platforms.

A new cooperative app, Bharat Taxi, was launched by the Centre in December. Trials are running in Delhi and Gujarat. Behind the scenes, Moving Tech is the tech partner.

A rival founder raised a red flag: the Bharat Taxi server points to api.moving.tech.

“This means no data isolation,” he said. “There’s no kill switch. It can be an unfair advantage.”

However, Namma Yatri says privacy is fully protected.

For Namma Yatri, state partnerships are now the main route to grow and expand:

• West Bengal: Yatri Sathi
  
  
• Odisha: Odisha Yatri
  
  
• Kerala: Kerala Savaari 2.0
  
  
• Tamil Nadu: unions and Chennai One

Governments own the brand, data and policy. Moving Tech supplies the platform. 

Rapido has grown across bikes, autos and cars,  and already offers zero commission nationwide. Ola is focused on EVs. Uber calls Rapido its top rival.

Namma Yatri’s differentiator today is government-backed legitimacy and not pricing or offers. 

“Across states, community-first apps work together on ONDC,” Namma Yatri co-founder Shan MS said. The competition, he argues, isn’t between them.

Read More 

A decade ago, parents used to tell their children to save. Now, children are inspiring their parents to invest in equities.

That generational shift is changing how India invests.

Groww co-founder Harsh Jain tells us that a cultural and mindset shift is fuelling broader equity participation across the country.

• According to the How India Invests report by Bain & Company and Groww, mutual fund penetration is expected to double from 10% of households to 20% over the next decade

India’s mutual fund assets under management (AUM) are also projected to grow nearly sevenfold, from about Rs 41 lakh crore today to around Rs 300 lakh crore by 2035.

“Investing is increasingly becoming an essential life skill. Everyone is looking to participate in the growth of the country and the economy through financialisation,” Jain said.

Equity investing has become mainstream over the last decade, with fully digital onboarding and investment processes, ensuring participation from every part of the country.

• Nearly 50% users are coming from tier 2 cities and beyond

Even the average asset under management (AUM) of a person in the metro versus the average AUM of the tier 2, tier 3 city is not much different.

“India is moving from a savings to an investing mindset and sees a lot less participation in cash and deposits,” the report said.

Dig deeper

• Google has made a strategic investment in Emergent, an agentic no-code platform that allows users to build production-grade applications without writing software.
  
  
• Amid layoff fears, Trump-appointed AI policy lead David Sacks says job losses blamed on AI are overstated, as the technology still depends heavily on human judgment and verification.

The on-field fireworks were dazzling, but the off-field brand value scoreboard shows a very different match unfolding.

• Teams like Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bengaluru saw value dips of 10% and 24%

Even IPL's brand value took a hit.

Know more

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