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In today’s newsletter: 

• How India plans to deploy its Rs 1 lakh crore deeptech fund 
• Binance co-CEO Yi He opens up on India plans 
• UPI's record run in December

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The government wants a domino effect in deep tech: tip in Rs 1 lakh crore, watch another Rs 10 lakh crore flow in.

The government’s latest Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) fund for deeptech companies wishes to catalyse and encourage VCs to take bolder bets. 

“If our investments of Rs 1 lakh crore encourage VCs to invest another Rs 10 lakh crore in the deep tech ecosystem, the fund will be a success,” Abhay Karandikar, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, told us. 

The RDI fund is the government’s latest initiative to support and scale India’s deeptech ecosystem. 

• Rs 15,000-20,000 crore will flow into alternate investment funds (AIFs) and startups each year over a period of seven years
  
  
• New battery chemistries, new motors for EVs, photonics or quantum computers, medical devices, gene therapies and biotechnology are some areas which will be in focus

The fund will operate over and above existing programmes such as the Small Industries Development Bank of India’s (SIDBI) fund of funds and will exclusively back deep-tech companies.

• To spur investments,  the government is “willing to take a lower internal rate of return (IRR) too,” Karandikar said

The DST is already looking for fund managers and can be seen deploying capital as early as May 2026. The RDI fund is needed because: 

• The deep tech sector suffers from “sub-critical funding” 

Apart from more investments, even having 5-10 globally competitive companies will mean the RDI fund has been successful, Karandikar concluded.

Dig deeper

Binance co-founder and now co-CEO Yi He has given her first interview to an Indian publication (to us, duh), underscoring the growing importance of India as an emerging market for the world’s largest crypto exchange.

• Binance is charting a path to reach one billion users, with India expected to play a key role

In an exclusive interview with us, Yi said that the country has become a critical market having a huge community base for Binance.

• “We respect the regulators and government in India,” she said, amid ongoing negotiations between global exchanges and the government to gain regulatory clarity
  
  
• Binance has also appointed S.B. Seker as its APAC Head, a move Yi believes will help steer regulatory engagement, given his Indian origin and regional experience.

In a separate interview with us, Binance CEO Richard Teng urged Indian policymakers to look beyond crypto exchanges, highlighting stablecoins and crypto payments as areas that can deliver significant value.

In her new role, Yi said she wants to focus on building innovative products, as crypto and traditional finance increasingly begin to converge.

• Her focus will be to launch new offerings for retail users
  
  
• She also plans to hire more region-focused leaders and expand the local workforce

The company is developing AI-driven products on its platform, though these initiatives are still at an early stage, she said.

Yi noted that the familiar boom-and-bust crypto cycles, which historically lasted around four years, are beginning to change. 

“Crypto cycles are changing. Earlier, when the stock prices decreased, the crypto would rise. But now that the most powerful stock market players are joining our industry, it’s changing,” she said.

Go deeper

UPI’s dream run from the October festive period appears to be continuing into December, with new records falling like dominoes almost every month.

The platform recorded seven consecutive days of over 700 million transactions in the first seven days of December.

• UPI crossed the 700-million-transactions-a-day mark for the first time only in August this year

October, boosted by Diwali spending, was the biggest month for UPI so far, but only eight days in that month saw daily volumes cross 700 million.

The first five days of December also saw daily transaction value exceed Rs 1 lakh crore for five consecutive days.

• In October, the Rs 1-lakh-crore threshold was breached on only seven days

To be sure, most payment instruments tend to see peak values in the first few days of the month, as salary credits, rent, EMIs and bill payments are typically concentrated during this period.

That said, the trend suggests that many more records are likely to fall in December.

Dig deeper

• OpenAI has launched ChatGPT’s first nationwide integrated brand campaign in India, rolling out an omnichannel push across television, OTT, digital, print and outdoor platforms to deepen localisation for Indian users.
  
  
• A Max Planck Institute study suggests that since ChatGPT’s rise, people are increasingly using chatbot-style vocabulary, with words once rare in casual speech appearing more often in everyday conversations.

GOAT of them all....he's invincible, he's untouchable, he's seen it all...Dhurandhar

It's not just the title track that is trending, Ranveer Singh's latest release Dhurandhar is minting box office gold.

• Over Rs 100 crore in three days, the film has set the tone for the December box office

Audiences can't get enough of not just Singh but also the strong ensemble, including Akshaye Khanna, R Madhavan, Sanjay Dutt.

Find out more

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