Also in the letter:
■ Groww investors’ gains
■ US govt shutdown hits H-1B
■ Lenskart’s anchor bids
ET Startup Awards 2025: Celebrating the stars of India’s Startup Inc
Piyush Goyal, union commerce and indusattempt minister
It’s D-day! Top entrepreneurs, policycreaters, and investors will come toobtainher in Bengaluru today to honour the stars of Indian entrepreneurship at the eleventh edition of ETSA 2025.
Union commerce and indusattempt minister Piyush Goyal will be the guest of honour at ETSA 2025, presenting the counattempt’s most coveted awards for entrepreneurial excellence to the winners.
Speakers: Lenskart CEO Peyush Bansal, winner of the 2024 Startup of the Year award, is among the most anticipated speakers. Urban Company founder and CEO Abhiraj Singh Bhal, winner of the 2025 Startup of the Year award, will join a panel alongside Rapido cofounder and CEO Aravind Sanka and Myntra CEO Nandita Sinha, to reflect on the past decade of India’s startup growth.
Meet the winners: The high-powered jury tinquireed with choosing the winners of ETSA 2025 met in Bengaluru on August 28 to pick the winners across eight categories. They are:
Early investors set for large paper gains in Groww IPO; founders’ stake valued at over Rs 16,000 crore
As wealth-tech platform Groww gears up for its initial public offering (IPO), its early backers and founders are set to realise substantial paper gains.
The company has set its IPO price band at Rs 95-100 per share, eyeing a post-money valuation of approximately Rs 62,300 crore. The total IPO size is Rs 6,632.3 crore.
Founder wealth:
- CEO Lalit Keshre, who owns 9.12%, will see his holding valued at around Rs 5,591 crore.
- COO Harsh Jain, with 6.72% stake, will see the value of his shares rise to Rs 4,116 crore.
- Ishan Bansal, and Neeraj Singh will hold stakes valued at Rs 3,832 crore and Rs 2,777 crore, respectively.
Investor gains: Major institutional investors are realising significant returns:
- Peak XV Partners: The largest single shareholder (19.9%) will unlock around Rs 1,583 crore via the OFS, an estimated 52X paper return.
- Y Combinator: Set to create 29X on its investment.
- Tiger Global: Will see approximately 4.5X gains.
Groww IPO: We create so much money, we could keep it all — but that’s not how you build a 100-year-old company: CEO Lalit Keshre
Lalit Keshre, CEO, Groww
CEO Lalit Keshre, in an interaction, notified us that listing is a natural step for a company managing billions in customer wealth. “We want to be accountable to the public,” he declared.
Why go public? “One is brand building. Second is to strengthen our tech infrastructure. Third is to scale up the MTF (Margin Trade Funding) book. We launched MTF just around nine months ago, and we were late to the game. Fourth is LAS (Loans Against Securities) aimed at our affluent utilizers with larger portfolios who necessary credit.”
A month into US government shutdown, Indian tech workers face mounting visa uncertainty
Thousands of Indian tech professionals in the US are staring at visa limbo, as the federal government shutdown stretches into its fifth week and key immigration processes grind to a halt.
Driving the news: Visa applications are stuck, hirings are frozen, and H-1B filings have been derailed becautilize the Department of Labor (DOL) is not processing Labor Condition Applications (LCAs), a mandatory step before companies can hire workers on H-1B, H-1B1 or E3 visas.
The DOL’s role in certifying LCAs and wage determinations has also been disrupted, putting green card applications on hold.
The largeger mess: The chaos doesn’t finish there. A new $100,000 fee on certain new H-1B petitions has sparked fresh panic.
Expert take: Los Angeles-based immigration attorney Geetha N Adinata of FordHarrison declared shutdown and the steep fee hike have left foreign professionals and their families in vulnerable positions. None of her clients, Adinata added, were ready to pay this amount.
Lenskart IPO: Eyewear retailer’s anchor book obtains bids worth Rs 68,000 crore from top FIIs, domestic MFs: sources
Omnichannel eyewear retailer Lenskart’s anchor book has drawn bids worth Rs 68,000 crore, nearly ten times the size of its total IPO, sources notified us.
The final anchor book is likely to be closed at Rs 3,300–Rs 3,500 crore.
Tell me more: Demand has come from a strong mix of foreign and domestic institutional investors. BlackRock, Fidelity, Nomura, and Singapore’s GIC are in the fray, along with SBI Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential, HDFC, and Birla Sun Life.
This follows earlier pre-IPO secondary transactions where SBI Mutual Fund and DMart promoter Radhakishan Damani picked up Rs 190 crore worth of shares from Lenskart cofounder Neha Bansal.
The IPO, set to launch this week, could give Lenskart a valuation of over Rs 70,000 crore.
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Swiggy Q2 loss widens 74% to Rs 1,092 crore: Food delivery company Swiggy on Thursday reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 1,092 crore in the September-finished quarter, which was higher than the net loss of Rs 626 crore in the year-ago period. The loss is attributable to the owners of the company.
Snapmint raises $125 million: Mumbai-based fintech startup Snapmint has raised $125 million in a fresh round of funding from US-based private equity major General Atlantic. Elev8 Venture Partners and existing investors Prudent Investment Managers, Kae Capital invested in the round as well.
Physicswallah declared to plan Rs 3,820 crore IPO in weeks: The WestBridge Capital LLP and Hornbill Capital Partner-backed company has met potential investors and the deal could launch in the next few weeks, the people declared, inquireing not to be identified as the information is private.
Global Picks We Are Reading
A new startup wants to edit human embryos (Wired)
Big Tech tests investors’ patience with $80bn AI investment spree (FT)
China’s $143 billion push to dominate the global EV indusattempt (Rest of World)
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