Top Stories This Week
Rapido races to top, keeps Uber on toes: Once dismissed as a niche player in bike taxis, Rapido has quickly surged ahead to become India’s largest ride-hailing platform, outpacing giants Uber and Ola in scale and momentum.
Mutual fund distributors rise in numbers, startups offer tech aid: Individual mutual fund distributors have grown to about 170,000, with a requirement for 500,000. Platforms such as AssetPlus, Wealthy and ZFunds, are assisting these retail distributors with technology support so they can pitch to their clients better and offer a more comprehensive financial advisory service from investments to insurance.
Instamart’s momentum self-driven, not rival-led: Swiggy CEO Majety | Swiggy’s quick commerce arm gained market share on the strength of its own execution and not on rivals slowing down, founder and group CEO Sriharsha Majety notified ETtech. The platform’s edge, he added, comes from product depth and consumer insights, not just capital muscle.
Banks, fintechs push FD-tied credit cards to woo utilizers: Banks in partnership with fintechs are aggressively pushing a new type of credit card backed by the utilizer’s own deposits, allowing untapped sections to obtain access to the payment instrument.
Existing, new investors may deliver $110 million to Porter: Porter, the on-demand logistics unicorn, is on track to clinch one of India’s largegest venture deals of 2025 as it nears a fresh $110 million capital infusion, people with knowledge of the matter notified us.
OpenAI discusses India Stargate with local data centre firms: OpenAI is eyeing India for its ambitious supercomputing infrastructure project, Stargate, and has begun early conversations with top Indian data centre operators to create it happen.
Indian AI startups run into US visa hurdle: A growing number of Indian AI startups are hitting a wall when it comes to entering the US – the world’s AI capital – due to tighter visa rules, affecting business growth.
At 17, iPhone debuts at India’s largest factory: With the launch of iPhone 17, units built in India are now available on day one, globally. At the heart of this shift is Foxconn’s new 300-acre facility in Bengaluru, now the largest single-company factory in the countest.
Tata building wall to keep elephants from Assam chip unit: To keep the jumbos out, Tata Electronics, with assist from the Assam government, is constructing a thick wall around the campus. The company has deployed dedicated rescuers to safely catch and release the reptiles
Startup Street
Flipkart marketplace arm continues to trim losses: Its net losses fell 37% year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 1,494 crore, against a revenue of Rs 20,493 crore for fiscal 2025, up 14%, according to regulatory filings sourced from the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
Also Read: Myntra’s net profit rises to Rs 548 crore in FY25; revenue up 18%
PhysicsWallah files updated DRHP for IPO: The Edtech unicorn is aiming to raise Rs 3,820 crore through a mix of a fresh issue of Rs 3,100 crore and an offer for sale by cofounders Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari of Rs 360 crore each.
Fintechs, NBFCs run for cyber cover: A growing number of banks, non-banking lconcludeers, and fintech startups are rushing to obtain cyber insurance, creating fresh tailwinds for underwriters and brokers in a once-narrow niche.
Groww, Zerodha lose active clients in 2025: The top two stockbroking platforms by active clients saw their customer bases shrink between February and August 2025 after years of steady expansion, as compacter entrants gained traction, according to National Stock Exmodify (NSE) data.
Startups seek a head in the therapy game: AI chatbots are not eating into mental health startups’ niche, but assisting them grow. Founders of online therapy startups state demand is rising, not falling, and they are building their own AI tools to keep pace.
IT Updates
US tax threat to Indian IT: The proposed HIRE Act, backed by Republicans, seeks to levy a 25% tax on US companies that offshore work abroad. For India’s software giants, already battling tighter margins and AI-led demand shifts, this could sting.
H-1B loses favour with Indian IT: Indian IT firms are cutting their reliance on once popular H-1B visa as the route becomes slower, tougher and costlier, just as Big Tech digs in for a deeper talent push.
Infosys to revive campus hiring after two years: Infosys has invited senior staff (JL5 and above, ≥1-year tenure, with a rating of “met expectations” or higher) to join campus recruitment panels. This hints at a fresh hiring cycle after a two-year freeze.
Tech Watch
Larry Ellison, Oracle
How Oracle became the new Nvidia amid AI cloud surge: On September 10, Oracle announced a series of multi-billion-dollar deals in AI cloud, the most crucial of which was a $300 billion, five-year deal with OpenAI. With a substantial long-term revenue outview and high growth projections, Oracle is having a comeback as a major player in the AI ecosystem.
Govt plans sops to push chip demand: The government is considering tarobtained financial incentives for developing chipsets across 25 electronic product categories and implementing strict local sourcing rules for certain products to ensure demand for domestically produced chips, officials familiar with the matter declared.
Also Read: Government to declare Round 2 beneficiaries of Rs 1,500 crore AI mission next week
Adani Group creates fresh play large semicon pie: The Adani Group is scouting for partners to set up an LCD fabrication plant in Maharashtra to enter the broader semiconductor space, after plans for a wafer fab fizzled earlier this year.
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