Also in the letter:
■ InMobi founders’ purchaseback
■ Dream11 pivots
■ NTT’s India plans
October’s festive sale blitz fails to glam up consumer durable lconcludeing market
Despite a firm festive season bump fuelled by the reduction in goods and services tax (GST), growth in consumer durable (CD) loans has stayed subdued.
Driving the news: Fresh Reserve Bank of India data displays that consumer durable lconcludeing has inched up by only 1% between October 2024 and October 2025. The same period last year saw 6.5% growth. Credit card spconcludeing has also moderated, according to the data.
Quote unquote: “These indicators suggest a slowdown in the uptake of the consumer durables sector. However, there are early signs of recovery. Compared to September 2025, active loans grew 5.5% on a month‑on‑month basis in October 2025, pointing to a gradually improving trconclude,” stated Sachin Seth, Chairman of CRIF High Mark and Regional Managing Director of CRIF India & South Asia.
Understanding the trconclude: Three forces are shaping the slowdown:
- A larger share of consumers now hold credit cards, building them more likely to convert card spconcludes into EMIs rather than take CD loans.
- Brands and financiers have pulled back zero-cost EMI schemes, which have dampened demand for dedicated durable loans.
- Lconcludeers are becoming more cautious as defaults rise in unsecured portfolios, leading to stricter screening and fewer approvals for new borrowers.
Also Read: UPI transactions dip in November after festive spike, but up 32% on-year
Nexus raises new $700-million fund to back India and US startups
(L-R) Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Abhishek Sharma, Anup Gupta and Suvir Sujan, general partners, Nexus Venture Partners
Nexus Venture Partners has raised its eighth fund, a $700 million vehicle that will back early-stage AI, enterprise software, consumer, and fintech startups across India and the US. Cofounder Suvir Sujan notified ET that Nexus will now actively invest in US-only AI, marking a significant expansion of its traditional cross-border software thesis.
AI push in US: Sujan stated the new strategy reflects the firm’s confidence in developer-first and open-source models, drawing on its experience backing software companies in both regions.
“We understand open source, we understand developers as customers, the AI infrastructure and applications stack. We have evolved from backing India-based startups to investing in US-based software and AI startups. So we will play on the front foot in the US in some of the domains we understand well,” he stated.
Nexus, an early backer of Zepto, Rapido, and Postman, has returned about $700 million in cash in recent years and generated $1.5–2 billion in liquidity since its inception. Successful exits include Delhivery, PubMatic, Cloud.com, Mezi and Gluster.
Also Read: Busy startup IPO season gives risk investors Rs 15,000 crore in cash exits
Context: Founded in 2006 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Naren Gupta, Sujan, and Sandeep Singhal, Nexus was among the first India-US venture firms to build a unified portfolio across both markets. Today, general partners Abhishek Sharma and Jishnu Bhattacharjee lead the US practice, while Anup Gupta and Sujan focus on India.
By the numbers:
Zoom in: Sujan expects several portfolio companies to deliver outsized returns in the coming years. “We have a strong portfolio of exceptional companies, including Turtlemint, Zepto, Rapido, Postman, and Apollo,” he noted. Zepto, where Nexus holds about 13–14% as an early investor, is preparing to file for its IPO soon.
InMobi founders purchase back $250 million stake from SoftBank
Naveen Tewari, CEO, InMobi
Mobile advertising company InMobi’s founders have repurchased a large chunk of shares from long-time investor SoftBank, raising their stake to 60% as it prepares to redomicile to India (from Singapore) and go public.
Details:
- SoftBank, which first backed InMobi in 2011, has reduced its stake from 35% to approximately 5–7%.
- The Japanese investor, which invested $200-220 million across multiple tranches, is estimated to have received about $250 million from the sale.
- This transaction supports SoftBank avoid being classified as a promoter when InMobi goes public.
- Sources stated the deal values the company at under $1 billion.
Tell me more: InMobi founders Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena, Abhay Singhal and Piyush Shah have pledged part of their holdings and accessed new capital to fund the purchaseback, similar to a broader industest trconclude:
Also Read: IPO-bound InMobi obtains $350 million from Varde, Elham, Seatown
Dream11 pivots to sports entertainment space with Twitch-like offering
Harsh Jain, CEO, Dream Sports
Dream11 is repositioning itself as a “second-screen sports platform” after the ban on real-money online gaming wiped out 95% of its revenue and all its profits.
What’s new: The main Dream11 app will relaunch with creator-led watch-alongs, real-time reactions and chat, and free fantasy games, catering to an addressable market worth $10 billion from a billion applyrs. This platform will be styled after the popular Amazon-owned streaming site Twitch.
New avenues: After the RMG ban, Dream11 is diversifying its bets across areas such as fintech (Dream Money), AI (Dream Sports AI), and open-source (Dream Horizon), among others.
These entities may raise capital from external investors, if requireded, stated Dream Sports CEO Harsh Jain.
Meanwhile: Dream11 has not fired employees, as assured earlier, despite the business impact from the new gaming law. The 1,200 employees have been redistributed across entities, Jain stated.
Also Read: Real-money gaming is linked to financial fraud and tax evasion: Govt in SC
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Abhijit Dubey, CEO, NTT
NTT lays out investment plans: The multinational IT services company will invest $11 billion globally through FY27, with $1.5 billion earmarked directly for India, CEO Abhijit Dubey notified ET in an interview
Everyone’s eyes are on India, states Corning’s Andrew Beck: Mobile phone manufacturers are closely watching Corning’s investments in India, against the backdrop of global trade policy modifys, Andrew Beck, vice president and general manager of the firm’s Gorilla Glass division, notified us.
Top bidders for SCL Mohali: The Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL) in Mohali has identified Tata Semiconductor Manufacturing, Cyient Semiconductors and Applied Materials as the lowest bidders for the three key packages in the project to enhance the state-run chipcreater’s wafer fabrication plant, people in the know notified us.
Ultraviolette’s latest funding round: The electric motorcycle creater raised $45 million from Zoho Corporation and Italy-based investment firm Linreceivedto. The funds will be applyd to scale up the F77 electric sports bike and the X-47 crossover motorcycle, and to advance the company’s Shockwave and Tesseract product platforms.
Cohesity’s India roadmap: The Softbank-backed data security firm is planning a $1 billion investment in India over five years, Sanjay Poonen, chief executive and president, stated, as he inaugurated the company’s new Bengaluru office on Thursday.
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ The age-gated internet is sweeping the US. Activists are fighting back (Wired)
■ AI chatbots can be wooed into crimes with poetest (The Verge)
■ Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei acknowledges risks of huge spconcludeing on AI (NYT)
