One quick thing: ONDC CEO Thampy Koshy steps down after a three-year stint    

In today’s newsletter:

• TCS posts weak Q4; tough times for IT
• Wakefit to raise $200 million through IPO 
• Flipkart’s 800 dark stores target

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The cautious tone from India’s IT bellwether signals that the road to recovery may still be longer than hoped.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services exporter, delivered a lacklustre Q4 for FY25, dashing hopes of a sustained turnaround in the sector.

• Revenue, profit, and margins all fell short of expectations, dragged down by weak demand and tariff-related pressures
  
  
• The bottomline for the quarter fell nearly 2% YoY to Rs 12,224 crore, missing expectations of Rs 12,554 crore
   
• Topline rose 5.3% to Rs 64,479 crore but missed estimates of Rs 64,840 crore for the quarter

TCS also posted a second consecutive year of low single-digit revenue growth, reflective of poor demand.

• Market watchers had predicted green shoots of revival in Q3 after 18 months of subdued growth

While the outlook remains hazy, TCS is cautiously optimistic about FY26.

Moreover, the IT behemoth is deferring wage hikes this year, considering the uncertain business environment.

• Leadership says pay revisions will depend on how the business environment evolves.

On the sidelines, the management told us that around 1,10,000 promotions were awarded in FY25, and 100% variable pay was given to 70%  of employees.

Despite the cautious tone, there were some green shoots.

• TCS added 625 employees in Q4, after workforce reductions in the previous quarter

For FY25, TCS added 6,400+ employees — a stark contrast to the 13,249 headcount dip in FY24, the first in its history.

• In a relief for fresh grads, TCS plans to hire 42,000+ freshers this year

Dig deeper

A new day, a new startup is preparing to tap the public markets.

Wakefit, a sleep and home solutions company, has picked three investment banks as advisers for its IPO. 

• Axis Capital, IIFL Capital Services and Nomura will run the mandate for Wakefit, sources told us
  

Wakefit will look to file draft IPO papers later this year but will decide on the timing later.

• The company is looking to raise anywhere between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000 crore, or around $200 million through the IPO

Wakefit’s decision to go public comes shortly after it crossed Rs 1,000 crore in revenues. 

• The company went from a top line of Rs 199 crore in FY20 to Rs 1,017 crore in FY24
  
  
• Its losses narrowed from Rs 146 crore in FY23 to Rs 15 crore in FY24

Wakefit is the latest to join a growing list of new-age companies that are looking to IPO. 

• Meesho, BlueStone, Ather are among 25 companies that will likely go public this year, we had reported earlier
  
  
• That is an increase from 13 startups, including Swiggy and Mobikwik, that went public last year 

Dig deeper

Flipkart, flush with funds, has set an ambitious goal for its quick commerce business – Minutes.

Flipkart Minutes, now led by former Dunzo chief Kabeer Biswas, aims to operate 800 dark stores by the end of the calendar year 2025, according to Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.

• The unit, launched just last year, started with 100 dark stores and has already scaled up to 300

In comparison, as of Q3 FY24:

• Blinkit: 1,007 dark stores

• Swiggy Instamart: 705 dark stores

• Zepto: 750 dark stores

While Flipkart Minutes is expanding its dark store footprint, Myntra—another group company—has seen a top-level resignation.

• Myntra’s chief product and technology officer (CPTO) Raghu Krishnananda is exiting the company, we learnt from an internal memo
  
  
• His team will now report to Myntra CEO Nandita Sinha, who already leads both Myntra and Flipkart Fashion

Krishnananda is the second CPTO to leave the Flipkart group in just two months. Flipkart’s CPTO, Jeyandran Venugopal, resigned in February, as we previously reported.

• At its Cloud Next 2025 event, Google unveiled Ironwood — its 7th-generation TPU — and a new lineup of AI models aimed at shaping what it calls the “age of inference,” where AI doesn’t just respond, it thinks ahead.
  
  
• xAI is now offering SuperGrok—the premium version of its Grok 3 chatbot—free for students for two months. 

Hold the bucket! 

KFC has cooked up something truly bizarre: fried chicken-flavoured toothpaste. Yes, you read that right. 

In collaboration with Hismile, the fast-food giant launched a limited-edition tube promising the "irresistible" taste of their 11 herbs and spices on your teeth. 

• Surprisingly, the $13 tube sold out in just 48 hours

Now you can have the scent of lunchtime, even at 7 AM.

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