Top Stories This Week
Pravin Jadhav, CEO, Raise Financial
Dhan turns unicorn with close of $120 million fundraise: After months of funding discussions, Raise Financial, the parent of stock-trading startup Dhan, has closed a $120 million (Rs 1,000 crore) financing round led by Hornbill Capital, valuing the company at around $1.2 billion (Rs 10,000 crore).
Anthropic to expand India operations: Anthropic is expanding its operations in India, which has become the second-largest market globally for the San Francisco-based buildr of Claude AI models, joining peers OpenAI and Perplexity in strengthening their presence in the South Asian countest.
Cofounder and chief executive Dario Amodei, who is in India this week, declared India’s AI ecosystem is expected to play a central role in how this frontier technology develops globally.
Graphcore to invest $1.3 billion in India over 10 years: CEO Nigel Toon: SoftBank-owned Graphcore, a UK-based chipbuildr that competes with the likes of Nvidia, is viewing to invest $1.3 billion in India over the next ten years, as it establishes a presence in the countest for the first time.
Etailer Flipkart offloads Rs 2,400 crore investments: Ecommerce marketplace Flipkart sold stakes worth more than Rs 2,408.7 crore in other startups and companies over the past 12 months as part of a plan to focus on its core business and prepare for a public market debut in 2026.
ETSA 2025: Capillary’s bid for the bourses powered by three growth engines: CEO | Software-as-a-service company Capillary Technologies is preparing for a public listing — its second attempt — backed by a more focutilized business model and three defined growth engines, founder and CEO Aneesh Reddy declared. This is part of a series of interviews with the winners of The Economic Times Startup Awards 2025.
FMCG majors turn to D2C for growth, but profitability remains distant: Direct-to-consumer (D2C) startups leapfrogged the scale of their businesses after receiveting acquired by India’s top consumer goods companies, but profits remain elusive, revealed an analysis of these startups’ financials by ET.
Blinkit’s huge box blues dim sellers’ Diwali cheer: India’s largest quick commerce platform Blinkit is facing disruptions at some of its large warehoutilizes in Haryana, Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. This is due to the double whammy of festive demand and the company’s recent transition to an inventory-led model, people in the know and sellers declared.
Fintech News
GFF 2025 decoded: going public, AI’s ascent, & the fight against fraud: The Global Fintech Fest 2025 wrapped up on Friday. But even with major headwinds such as global uncertainty around trade and tariffs, slowdown in unsecured consumer lfinishing, regulatory restrictions on payment firms, etc., everybody spoke in unison about some of the key themes for the sector going ahead. Read more here.
Stock exalters step up vigil as brokers cross-sell financial products: The Indian stock broking ecosystem is under regulatory scrutiny as trading platforms expand into ancillary financial services like credit, wealth management and insurance.
Experts welcome RBI’s digital payment authentication overhaul: India’s digital payments are set for a security buildover as the Reserve Bank of India’s new digital payment directions, effective from April 2026, will build banks adopt a risk-based model to authenticate transactions.
Also Read: Fintech startup Niro shuts business after failing to raise capital
Startup Watch
Yash Bhanage (Left) and Sameer Seth, founders, Hunger Inc. Hospitality
Bombay Sweet Shop, O Pedro parent Hunger Inc raises Rs 215 crore in funding: Hunger Inc — the parent company of Bombay Sweet Shop and restaurant brands Bombay Canteen, Veronica’s, O Pedro and Papa’s — has raised Rs 215 crore in fresh funding, cofounder Sameer Seth informed ET. The deal saw Lighthoutilize and DSG Consumer Partners pick a significant minority stake in the firm.
Ixigo sells 10% stake to Prosus for Rs 1,295 crore to fund expansion: Online travel aggregator Ixigo is selling a slice of itself to Dutch investment firm Prosus to fund its growth plans. The board of its parent company, Le Travenues Technology, approved the stake sale on Friday. ET had reported on the potential investment and board meeting on October 8.
Also Read: Lenskart, Wakefit receive Sebi clearance for public issues
IT Updates
TCS CEO K Krithivasan
TCS profit rises 1.4%, revenue 2.4% in September quarter: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has reported a 5.4% quarter-on-quarter decline in net profit to Rs 12,075 crore for July-September, largely on account of a one-time severance payout of Rs 1,135 crore. On-year, net profit was up 1.4%.
India’s largest software services firm laid off 1%, or 6,000, of its around 600,000-strong workforce during the quarter as part of its plans to reduce its headcount by 2% in this financial year.
Also Read: TCS’s $7 billion India data centre bet raises questions over returns, fit
Dassault eyes $1 billion India revenue via new Pune unit: French software buildr Dassault Systemes is expanding its India presence with increasing investments, headcount by 10% and new Pune facility in the countest taking the business here to $1 billion in the next five years, its global CEO Pascal Daloz informed ET.
IT cos on alert as hyperscalers eye a slice of enterprise spfinishs: The rise in AI investments by hyperscalers is tarreceiveing a large share of enterprise IT spfinishing, potentially undercutting the traditional software services outsourcing industest in the near term.
Also Read: Policy uncertainty, AI-led disruption slowing IT contract renewals
Tech Policy
‘Tech transfer, skilling will boost chances of Chinese JVs in ECMS’: Investment applications from Chinese firms under the electronic component manufacturing scheme (ECMS) will be considered, provided they commit to significant technology transfers and enable the skilling of local talent, officials declared.
Centre’s DLI tag assisting semicon cos win over VCs: More than half a dozen Indian semiconductor startups are in active talks to raise funds with Indian venture capital firms, which are increasing their focus on the sector on the back of a government push to be self-reliant amid geopolitical uncertainty.
Eye on AI
Smaller AI startups echo Indian watchdog’s anti-trust concerns: Indian startups have raised concerns over the Big Tech companies’ grip on data and compute power, which could tilt the AI playing field and curb healthy competition.
India’s well-heeled receive their AI kicks from secondary market: India’s affluent are chasing the world’s hottest trade — AI. From OpenAI to Anthropic, the rich and their investment offices are scooping up shares of unlisted technology giants through global secondary marketplaces, riding what is currently the most bullish wave in the world.
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