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In today's newsletter:

• Flipkart's top deck churn continues
• Swiggy, Ola markdowns sour SoftBank's India bets
• Indian VC firms back in hiring mode

Also, if you are an Amazon Prime Video customer, brace yourself for some bad news. Scroll below for more deets!

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Flipkart’s top ranks continue to thin out as competitors swoop in on its talent

Flipkart has seen four top executives resign in the recent weeks, sources told us. These include:

• Ankit Jain, Senior Vice President (SVP), head of grocery and large supply chain
  
  
• Prajakta Kanaglekar, VP,  human resources (HR) (technology)
  
  
• Anurag Singhvi, VP, head of analytics
  
  
• Ganesh Ramaswamy, VP (Flipkart) and chief product and technology officer (CPTO), Cleartrip

 Flipkart’s Ankit Jain is heading to Swiggy Instamart, which continues to add Flipkart executives to its cart, we were told. 

• Ankit Jain is set to replace Sairam Krishnamurthy, who was hired as the SVP and chief operating officer at Swiggy Instamart only eight months ago.

• He will work closely with a former Flipkart colleague Amitesh Jha, who currently serves as CEO of Swiggy Instamart. 

Among the other Flipkart executives who have recently joined Swiggy include:

• Kanika Tiwari, Monetisation Head, Instamart
  
  
• Hari Kumar G, SVP/CBO, Instamart
  
  
• Shalabh Shrivastava, SVP, Operations 

These changes come at a time when the quick commerce wars are heating up and Flipkart Minutes is preparing to compete more closely with Swiggy Instamart, Eternal’s Blinkit, Zepto and others.

• That said, we recently reported that Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy has been mandated to cut monthly cash burn by half from $40 million a month to $20 million a month. 

Dig deeper

From snacks to scooters, not every fast-moving idea delivers

Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group took a $708 million hit on its Vision Fund 2 in the January–March 2025 quarter — and India was squarely in the red zone.

• The losses were driven by Swiggy and Ola Electric, the firm’s two Indian listed bets from Vision 2 fund, both are now trading below their IPO prices.

“In the March quarter alone, the value of public companies held by Vision Fund 2—like Swiggy and Ola—fell 21.7%, dragging down the fund’s total value by 2.7%," SoftBank said.

Swiggy’s stock tumbled 42% in 2025 as losses ballooned to Rs 1,081 crore, nearly double what they were a year ago.

•  Its EBITDA loss widened to Rs 961 crore, thanks to relentless spending on quick commerce.

•  Swiggy's shares fell over 6% today as the mandatory IPO lock-in period for pre-IPO shareholders expired.

Ola Electric posted a Rs 564 crore loss in Q3 FY25, squeezed by discount wars and an increasingly crowded EV market.

Despite India-related losses, SoftBank reported a strong overall performance. 

• $3.5 billion profit for the January–March quarter, $7.4 billion profit for FY25 — its first full-year profit in four years. 

• Vision Fund 1 booked a $6.1 billion gain, powered by ByteDance, Coupang, DiDi, and Auto1.

•  Vision Fund 2 however closed the year with a $3.4 billion loss, weighed down by India and other late-stage markdowns.

“Hopefully we will be able to see some good recovery from there,” said SoftBank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto during the earnings call.

Go deeper

From term sheets to team sheets – VCs are making headcount their next big bet.

Fresh funds and a flurry of deals are giving VC hiring a second wind.

• Hiring intent at India-focused VC firms is up 15–30% year-on-year, say recruiters. 

New fund launches and $100 million+ bets are putting talent back on the term sheet.

• More deals mean more due diligence, and more hands on deck to vet them – particularly analysts and associates.

VCs want brains with bandwidth – and AI is the unicorn skill of the season.

• Firms are hunting AI/ML experts, SaaS veterans, and data engineers for cutting-edge roles.

Healthcare and deep-tech specialists are also in the spotlight as sectoral bets deepen.

While the hiring spree is on, VCs are being selective, balancing growth with caution.

• Junior and mid-level roles (2–5 years' experience) are getting the greenlight, while senior hiring is selective – reserved for high-impact leadership slots.

• It’s not a hiring frenzy, say recruiters — firms are moving deliberately, prioritising essential roles over mass expansion.

If the funding tap is flowing again, talent’s not far behind — and this time, the VCs are writing offers as fast as they write cheques.

Dig deeper

• Saudi Arabia has launched a new artificial intelligence company, Humain, which will be chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and serve as the main vehicle for the kingdom’s AI strategy. 

• Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University unveiled LegoGPT, an AI model that creates physically stable Lego structures from text prompts. It also ensures they can be built brick by brick in the real world, either by hand or with robotic assistance.

If you're a Prime Video customer in India, brace yourself! Your binge sessions might soon come with a few ad breaks. 

Amazon Prime Video will start showing limited advertisements during its shows and movies in India from June 17.

• The service however claims that ads will be "meaningfully fewer" than those on television channels and other streaming services.

People who want an ad-free experience will have to shell out an extra Rs 699 per year or Rs 129 a month.

Guess all good things come to an end after all!

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