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In today’s newsletter:

• Lenskart eyes billion dollar IPO
• TCS delivers a mixed bag in Q3
• Swiggy chief on separate apps for Instamart, Snacc

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Lenskart is ‘eyeing’ an IPO.

Eyewear startup Lenskart has called on bankers to pitch for the company’s mega public market debut, sources told us.

•  The company is looking to raise anywhere around $750 million to $1 billion, they added
  

If the company successfully raises that much capital, it will be one of the largest new-age IPOs after Paytm, Swiggy and Zomato. 

“The company is eyeing a valuation of $7-8 billion and is likely to list toward the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026,” one of the persons cited above said.

A valuation of $8 billion (Rs 68,000 crore) translates to a revenue multiple of 12.5X on its FY24 sales of Rs 5,427 crore. 

• The company, however, continues to grow which means the multiples will settle as Lenskart scales
  
  
• A valuation of $8 billion is 60% higher than $5 billion, the valuation Lenskart commanded during its last private market fundraise 

Lenskart was profitable in the past but incurred a loss of Rs 10 crore in FY24 as the company prioritised growth over profits. 

Lenskart joins a growing list of new-age companies that are looking to go public in the next fiscal. 

• Zetwerk, OfBusiness, Pine Labs, are all looking to raise $1 billion each via IPOs
  
  
• Zepto, Infra.market, Fractal, PhysicsWallah (PW), are all targeting IPOs in the range of $500 million

Dive deeper

The verdict is out: It was a mixed bag for India's largest information technology company, Tata Consultancy Services, in the third quarter.

While the third quarter is seasonally weak, the Mumbai-headquartered company's management indicated that discretionary consumer sentiment is improving.

• Performance of the BFSI sector has been steady over the last two quarters
  
  
• Additionally, the India growth story continued even in Q3FY25

However, metrics such as the company’s margins and headcount declined this quarter.

Most of the bellwether’s numbers were tepid, and to be sure, analysts expected that.

• While revenue met expectations at Rs 63,973 crore
  
  
• Net profit beat estimates at Rs 12,380 crore
  
  
• While margins missed estimates at 24.5%

The company also fared poorly on the employee metric, losing over 5,000 employees in Q3 after two consecutive quarters of headcount growth.

The Indian geography grew by 70% this quarter, at a time when other markets were either in the negative territory or grew in single digits.

• The management also highlighted that growth in India was primarily contributed by non-BSNL clients

Dig deeper

Looks like Swiggy’s Instamart is growing up and getting its own big room...But with parental controls!

Food and grocery delivery giant Swiggy is set to launch its quick-commerce offering, Instamart, as a standalone app, in the coming weeks. 

"The Swiggy app continues to see very strong effects of cross-pollination with an integrated membership programme, card, etc...Instamart has the potential to be much larger in terms of user base and become bigger than food delivery,” Swiggy co-founder and group CEO Sriharsha Majety told us in an exclusive interview. 

Instamart isn’t leaving the nest entirely—it’ll still be featured on the Swiggy app.

• Swiggy has taken this route before with offerings like Swiggy Daily, Supr Daily, and Dineout, which had standalone apps in the past alongside its core offering

The move comes days after rivals like Blinkit launched the Bistro app and Zepto introduced a separate app for Cafe, as competition in quick commerce intensifies.

Also read: Bernstein initiates coverage on Swiggy with 'outperform' rating, sees 25% upside; stock jumps 3%

It’s not just Instamart. On January 8, we exclusively reported that Swiggy is launching Snacc, a standalone 15-minute food delivery app.

The company’s move to launch a separate app comes as it also looks to target customers looking for a particular offering and to gain some cross-pollination benefits.

"...We have however found a lot more growth on the Swiggy app as well, thanks to an integrated approach. We get a huge amount of cross-pollination benefits,” Majety said.  

This approach mirrors strategies adopted by Chinese internet giants like Meituan (Swiggy's investor) and Alibaba, which combine a unified app with a suite of standalone apps tailored to specific use cases.

Find out more

Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking programme has created a ripple in the industry globally. 

• The story in India is similar: surprise, confusion, and uncertainty

Going ahead, such organisations have planned multiple meetings, trying to figure out a way ahead since Meta’s fact checking program program was a major source of funding for such organisations.

Dig deeper

•  The Biden administration plans one additional round of restrictions on the export of AI chips from the likes of Nvidia just days before leaving office, a final push in his effort to keep advanced technologies out of the hands of China and Russia.
  
  
• Blackstone is investing $300 million in DDN, a company that helps organisations store and analyse large amounts of data, marking the private-equity firm's latest bet on AI growth and valuing the California-based company at $5 billion.

While companies are marching their employees back to the office, Spotify's HR chief is dropping the mic with a bold statement: 

"You can’t spend a lot of time hiring grownups and then treat them like children.” 

The music streaming giant is bucking the trend, sticking to its "work from anywhere" policy. 

Katarina Berg, Spotify's HR boss, believes in trust and freedom. "Work is not a place you come to, it’s something you do," she said.

More on that here 

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