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In today’s newsletter:

• PhonePe takes on Zerodha with stock broking app
• 0% hike for LTIMindtree employees
• WhiteHat Jr CEO Ananya Tripathi resigns

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While we are all eagerly awaiting the cage fight between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, a new battle is brewing in the Indian stock broking space.

• India's leading digital payments platform PhonePe has entered the stock broking business with the launch of its app called "Share.Market"

The move is seen as a challenge to established players such as Zerodha and Upstox.

• The fintech company now offers a suite of financial products, including insurance, lending, and investment

As the country's largest mobile payment player with a 47% market share in UPI, the company's entry into the stock broking market could significantly boost equity investments in India.

PhonePe has over 200 million active users and is looking to increase its overall install base to over 500 million by the end of this year.

Although the stock broking service will be a separate app, even a small nudge to one percent of its customers could overwhelm the systems, PhonePe said. 

• The company said that it will take things slow and keep adding products and tools over the next two years

At the launch, PhonePe co-founder and CEO Sameer Nigam downplayed the potential or success of Share.Market, saying that the company is playing the long game with no targets or goals in mind.

Nigam acknowledged that the field is crowded with credible players with competent tech skills.

• Stock broking is one of the lucrative segments for payment companies as they look to accelerate their monetisation models

The market has been booming, with the number of investors growing from 50 million to 140 million over the past three and a half years. Only 25% of new investors come from the top 30 cities today.

• In August, PhonePe had over 1 million SIP transactions. It has sold over 6 million insurance policies

The hope is that the market is large enough to accommodate more players as more Indians invest in equities.

Dig deeper

It's now officially the season of dashed hopes as the appraisal process concludes for most industries. However, employees at IT services firm LTIMindtree were in for an even bigger shock.

As it turns out, many tech employees in the company received zero percent salary hikes for FY24. 

• On the other hand, some others in the company were granted a humble 1-2% increase
  

• Additionally, the appraisal cycle was also delayed by 4 months

The performance appraisals were aligned with industry norms, a company spokesperson said. Salary increments for each employee were determined by: 

• Their individual performance
  
  
• Length of service with the company, and market competitiveness

LTIMindtree is not the only company that has delayed its annual salary increment cycle, which typically starts in April. Other IT companies such as Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCLTech, and Wipro have also delayed the cycle by at least one quarter.  

• This is mainly due to the uncertain business environment in the IT sector and delays in deal closures

The only exception is Tata Consultancy Services, which started its promotion cycle on April 1 and gave "exceptional performers" increments of 12-15%.

Go deeper

Yesterday, we reported that three senior executives quit Byju's. Today, we hear that the CEO of one of the company's biggest acquisitions, WhiteHat Jr, has also resigned.

• The exodus of these senior executives is surely putting a strain on India's most valuable startup, especially as it seeks to rebuild itself from the current crisis

Ananya Tripathi, the CEO of WhiteHat Jr, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Byju’s, has tendered her resignation. However, Byju’s management is yet to formally accept her resignation.

• Tripathi, who has been on maternity leave since May this year, has decided to move on

Arjun Mohan, who re-joined Byju’s in July to oversee its international operations, has been providing support to the team during Tripathi’s absence.

Byju’s acquired WhiteHat Jr, a code-learning platform, for a whopping $300 million cash deal in August 2020. The deal gave Karan Bajaj, the founder of the code-learning platform, one of the biggest exits in the history of India’s startup ecosystem.

However, the company soon faced criticism for its aggressive mis-selling strategies.

• WhiteHat Jr was also reported to have disregarded the guidelines set forth by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)

Since then, the vertical has struggled. Byju Raveendran has also been vocal about how WhiteHat Jr is the only vertical that burns a lot of money for the company on a consolidated level. 

Find out more

• OpenAI is on track to generate more than $1 billion in revenue over the next 12 months.
  
  
• Google integrates Duet AI into Workspace apps for large businesses at $30 per month, pricing for smaller organisations is pending.

The Pragyan rover has been hard at work on the lunar surface, conducting in-situ experiments and exploring the uncharted south pole of the Moon. But it also knows how to have fun!

"Smile, please!" That's what the Pragyan rover said to the Vikram lander when it snapped a picture of it this morning.

• The image shows the lander deployed with its two scientific instruments, the Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment and Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity 

But wait, there's more!

In addition to taking pictures, the Pragyan rover has also been conducting scientific experiments. It recently confirmed the presence of sulfur in the region, which is something that the instruments onboard the orbiters were not able to do.

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