One quick thing: IT committee flags fund underuse in MeitY’s PLI, chip schemes

In today’s newsletter:

• Decoding Lenskart's DRHP for Rs 2,150 cr IPO
• Media veteran unpacks OTT, AI and micro dramas
• Are neobanks relevant?

P.S.: Introducing the Tech3 Podcast, your daily dose of tech and startup insights. Monday to Friday! Check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

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The eyewear brand’s Rs 2,150 crore IPO play brings exits, expansion and exposure into sharp focus.

Founders and early backers are eyeing the exit door — with some seeing far clearer returns than others.

• SoftBank, Temasek, Premji Invest and others are selling 13.2 crore shares in the OFS

Co-founder Neha Bansal stands to make 2.4x more than CEO Peyush, whose own returns are 5.7x higher than Alpha Wave’s.

• Premji Invest is walking away with a 4.4x higher exit value than Alpha Wave, thanks to a bargain entry at Rs 24/share

From robotic labs to store blitzes, Lenskart is adjusting its frame for retail domination.

• Rs 272.6 crore is earmarked to launch 620 new company-owned, company-operated stores by FY29, while Rs 591.4 crore will go towards lease deposits for existing ones
  
  
• The company is investing Rs 213.4 crore in cloud infrastructure and robotic lens labs, and Rs 320 crore to polish its brand and marketing efforts
  
  
• It also acquired an 80% stake in Spanish firm Stellio Ventures, owner of Gen Z-favourite Meller, for Rs 406.4 crore

Pay packages are crystal clear, and risks, a little blurry.

• Peyush Bansal will draw Rs 6 crore annually, while Neha Bansal and Amit Chaudhary will each pocket Rs 3 crore starting April 2025
  
  
• Board members Kashyap and Karanjkar will earn Rs 30 lakh, with Merchant and Kurien taking home Rs 42 lakh and Rs 34 lakh respectively

But with Rs 345.9 crore in debt, concentrated operations, and potential delays at its planned Rs 1,500 crore Telangana plant, investors may want to keep an eye on the risk section.

Dig deeper

Weekend binges came easy this year, thanks to Sameer Nair’s power-packed lineup—Black Warrant on Netflix, Criminal Justice S4 on JioHotstar, and The Hunt on SonyLIV.

• Criminal Justice served up the biggest verdict of all: most-watched original of 2025

Nair, a media veteran and Managing Director of Aditya Birla Group-owned Applause Entertainment, has a content slate packed with fresh originals and sequels to fan-favourite titles.

• He is also chasing the box office dream with a big screen push, aiming to build a large movie studio 

After a strong run on streaming, Nair is now betting big on movies to drive the next phase of growth.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t powering films and series yet, Nair told us.

• While AI is proving useful in short-form content creation, its role in full-length films and series remains limited.

Applause is engaging with firms like Google in a deeper way for their AI technology.

Micro dramas are fun to watch, Nair said, but he has no plans to create them. 

• Bite-sized shows may be cheap to produce, but that's a formula Nair isn't ready to buy into

Nair, the creative force behind the iconic shows like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, is pleased to see the daily soap return to screens after almost two decades.

• Nair believes Indians are too self-critical about reboots—“Retelling good stories matters,” he says.

Find out more

Once seen as the future of banking, neobanks like Jupiter and Fi Money are rewriting their playbooks. 

Neobanks have now pivoted to what every other fintech is doing: payments, lending, and investment products.  

• These companies launched debit and credit cards with attractive rewards to acquire customers

Meanwhile, Indian banks have already leapfrogged into full digital banking, offering virtually every service online.

• There was little money to be made from the core banking services that neobanks initially offered

Traditional banks were already providing premium services to affluent customers.

“Consumers in their 40s or 50s — already have a primary bank account they don’t want to switch from,” said Sumit Gwalani, cofounder of Fi Money.

The real money lies in getting customers to open deposits and using those funds to lend.

• However, regulations did not allow neobanks to let customers open accounts directly with them

As a result, neobanks ended up acting as digital selling agents (DSAs) for banks.

• For that model to succeed, they needed scale…millions of users

But scaling wasn’t easy. 

“Getting the first 100,000 consumers is way easier... but getting from 2 million to 10 million to 20 million is very tough,” Jupiter founder Jitendra Gupta said at a conference.

The startups have since pivoted. But they lost valuable time and money, without offering any real differentiation from other payment fintechs like PhonePe.

Dig deeper

Researchers at Saudi Arabia’s KAUST have discovered that zinc sulfate, a salt you find in health supplements, can extend the life of water-based batteries.

• By more than 10 times

How? It works by stopping “free water” molecules from reacting with the battery’s anode, the part that stores and gives out energy.

The result? Longer-lasting, more stable, and safer batteries. 

Find out more

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