Top Stories This Week
Smaller EV players nearly wiped out as FAME-II crackdown triggers sales collapse: Electric two-wheeler makers penalised for violating Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles-II (FAME-II) subsidy norms have seen a collapse in sales, with several smaller players nearly vanishing from the market.
Very unfair criticism to call TCS one-trick pony: CEO K Krithivasan | In an interview with ET, Krithivasan dismissed concerns about the company’s growth being hinged on its network deal with BSNL, saying TCS is not a “one-trick pony”, and stressed that the $30 billion firm is not losing market share to anyone.
Zepto Cafe scales down as orders drop and supply issues mount: Zepto Cafe, the 10-minute food delivery service from the quick commerce firm, has scaled down operations as it faces challenges around sourcing products and a shortage of trained staff to run its kitchens.
Mid-year ecommerce sales spike sets the stage for cracking festive season: Ecommerce order volumes during the recent sale period grew 19% compared with a year earlier, according to market trackers and analysts.
Future-proofing of jobs: Mid-career pros rewire skills to ride AI current | Future-proofing is no longer just a stock phrase amongst mid-career professionals as they flock to online learning platforms to acquire new skills and sharpen existing ones amid broad disruption unleashed by new technologies including artificial intelligence (AI).
Sameer Brij Verma’s solo fund Northpoint raises $150 million: Sameer Brij Verma, who left venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners last year, has raised $150 million for his new solo partner fund Northpoint Capital, people in the know said.
Udaan acquires retail tech startup ShopKirana for $88.5 million in stock: Business-to-business (B2B) grocery delivery platform Udaan said it agreed to acquire 100% stake in retail tech startup ShopKirana in an all-stock deal.
Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla back on terra firma after 18-day space expedition: After 18 days in space, Group Captain and astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla experienced gravity again. Stepping out of the Dragon capsule with a grin and the Indian flag on his shoulder, Shukla, or Shux, became the second Indian to travel to space and the first to enter the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission.
Fintech News
UIDAI is working on simplifying offline Aadhaar for citizen KYC: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which manages the Aadhaar database, is working to strengthen the offline identity verification service for citizens, with an aim to make it further secure and user-friendly and encourage more financial services players to adopt it.
Exclusive: Paytm Money set to get a new CEO: Paytm Money, the stockbroking subsidiary of One 97 Communications Ltd. (OCL), which runs Paytm, has appointed Sandiip Bharadwaj as its new CEO, said people with knowledge of the matter.
Fintech majors are counting on co-branded cards in returns play: Major Indian fintechs operating on the UPI network are expanding their credit portfolio to generate steady revenue from the business as the government continues to provide UPI payments free of cost.
Startup Watch
VCs warm up to quick-fashion delivery startups: Funding momentum is building in the early-stage quick-fashion delivery space, as investors double down on startups focused on fast-moving fashion products with shorter turnaround times, even as concerns linger around the model’s sustainability.
SaaS startups tailor new green solutions for fashion industry: Frequent returns, oversupply and environmental concerns are among the challenges the fashion industry has been facing for a long time. As consumption of fashion rises, AI is stepping in to reduce the ecological harm.
Byju’s founders plan $2.5 billion lawsuit against Glas Trust, others: Byju’s founder Byju Raveendran and his wife Divya Gokulnath are planning to sue Glas Trust and other lenders to the edtech firm seeking $2.5 billion in damages for alleged reputational harm, their lawyers said.
Also Read: Byju Raveendran denies making secret payments to government officials to resolve FEMA cases
Earnings Corner
Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO, Ola Electric
Ola Electric Q1: Revenue halves, losses widen | The company posted a net loss of Rs 428 crore on revenue of Rs 828 crore for the quarter ended June 30. While net loss widened from Rs 347 crore a year earlier, it narrowed to less than half from Rs 870 crore in the January-March quarter.
Wipro Q1 net profit up 11%, revenue flat: Wipro reported a 10.9% year-on-year increase in net profit for the first quarter, boosted by a reduction in expenses and foreign exchange gains, even as revenue grew under 1%. Sequentially, both profit and revenue fell – by 6.7% and 1.6%, respectively.
Tech Mahindra’s Q1 profit up 34%: Tech Mahindra, the Mahindra Group’s IT subsidiary, reported a 34% year-on-year jump in profit for the first quarter ended June, helped by lower subcontracting expenses.
Also Read: LTIMindtree Q1 Cons PAT up 11% to Rs 1,254 crore
HCLTech’s first quarter net drops 10% YoY: HCLTech trailed market estimates with a 9.7% year-on-year decline in quarterly net profit due to higher costs and the one-time impact of a client’s bankruptcy. Profit fell 10.8% sequentially.
Ixigo logs 73% rise in Q1 revenue: Le Travenues Technology, the parent company of online travel aggregator Ixigo, saw its operating revenue increase by 73% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 314 crore for the quarter ended June on account of growth across all lines of business.
Also Read: LTTS Q1 profit up marginally to Rs 316 crore
IT Updates
TCS employees on the edge as co’s new benching policy completes first cycle: As the first 35-day cycle under TCS new bench policy ended, thousands of benched employees are staring at uncertainty, with many taking to social platforms to voice their anxiety.
On the bright side, the IT bellwether announced 100% quarterly variable pay for more than 70% of its employees for the April-June period.
Small cities see 50% H1 rise in IT hiring in a jobs twist: Smaller cities from Udaipur to Vizag and Coimbatore to Nagpur grossly outperformed India’s established technology hubs and other metros for growth in hiring for traditional software and IT-specific jobs in the first half of 2025 from a year earlier, according to staffing services firms.
Also Read: Wipro looking to become consulting-led, AI-powered company, says Rishad Premji
Tech and Policy
US copper tariff may impact Indian electronics, chip plans: President Donald Trump last week announced a steep 50% tariff on copper imports into the US, triggering an alarm across global supply chains and raising concerns in India’s electronics and semiconductor industries.
Solicitor general defends govt’s takedown regime in X HC case: The government told the Karnataka High Court that it invokes Rule 3(1)(d) of Information Technology Rules to flag illegal content to online intermediaries, who can decide whether to take down the material or risk the matter going to court.
Upskilling, reskilling to help Indian workforce win in tomorrow’s market: Coursera CEO | India could house the largest user base for Coursera by 2026, the $1.3 billion online learning platform’s president and chief executive Greg Hart told ET..
Eye on AI
Scoring with AI not enough to crack US enterprise code: Indian AI startups, which are making a beeline to the US to be close to customers, are taking longer to conclude deals and run pilots with US enterprises, amid rising competition and changing business landscape, founders and investors said.
Also Read: Zoho debuts in-house LLM and AI agents; aims to optimise efficiency and reduce costs
AI becomes spiritual guide for customers on devotional apps: Spiritual and devotional platforms like AppsForBharat, Utsav and Bhagva, and astrology startup Vaya are increasingly turning to AI, for matching devotees with the right priests and translating chants in real time to training models to predict astrological aspects such as planetary movement and understand birth charts.
