SoftBank changes India gears; Meesho’s homecoming

Also in the letter:

Exclusive: SoftBank explores buyout deals in India to accelerate AI-led IT services, BPO operations

Driving the news:

It held talks to acquire AGS Health in a deal worth around $1 billion, though Blackstone eventually bagged it.

SoftBank is also in discussions with WNS Global and several mid-sized outsourcing players, sources said.

Zoom out:

In the US, it is backing The Stargate Project, a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative.

In Japan, SoftBank is developing Cristal Intelligence, a proprietary enterprise AI platform built with OpenAI.

Through SB OpenAI Japan, it is co-developing enterprise-grade AI systems and solutions.

Adding context:

Sumer Juneja, head of India and EMEA for the Vision Fund, told ET earlier that the fund remains open to smaller initial bets, with the option to increase exposure as firms grow.

Between the lines:

Meesho concludes reverse flip process; likely to file DRHP in 2-3 weeks

Driving the news:

The SoftBank-backed company secured approval from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on May 27 to proceed with its reverse flip.

As part of the move, the company is expected to face a tax liability of $280-300 million in the United States.

With this, Meesho joins a growing list of high-profile startups, including Groww, Razorpay, Dream Sports, Zepto and PhonePe, that have redomiciled to India in recent years.

Quote, unquote:

Tell me more:

Meesho filed for NCLT approval of the reverse merger in January.

Around the same time, it closed a $550 million funding round, bringing in new investors including Tiger Global, Mars Growth Capital, and Think Investments.

Meanwhile, Meesho’s ecommerce rival, the Walmart-owned Flipkart, is also preparing to shift its domicile from Singapore to India ahead of a planned 2026 IPO.

ETtech Done Deals: Zerodha’s Kamaths buy minority stake in InCred

Deeptech startup Fabheads raises $10 million led by Accel:

EV infra startup Kazam raises $6.2 million in fresh round:

Darwinbox completes Rs 86-crore Esop buyback from 350 employees:

Other Top Stories By Our Reporters

Over 17,300 GPUs installed under IndiaAI Mission:

Prosus pegs IPO-bound Urban Company’s fair value at $2.4 billion:

Startups cheer HAL taking over ISRO’s SSLV rocket:

Global Picks We Are Reading

Happy Tuesday! SoftBank is looking to acquire IT-enabled services firms in India. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.■ ETtech Done Deals■ IndiaAI Mission progress■ Urban Company’s valuation markupSoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi SonSoftBank is scouting for acquisitions in India’s IT-enabled services (ITeS) sector, signalling a shift from its traditional focus on backing high-growth tech startups.Sources told us the Masayoshi Son-led Japanese conglomerate is looking to buy or partner with business process outsourcing (BPO) and IT services firms to accelerate AI adoption in the services sector.“They’re evaluating a range of BPO and KPO firms that are ripe for disruption. The goal is to pair SoftBank’s tech playbook with services delivery,” a person familiar with the discussions told us.The move ties into SoftBank’s broader global AI ambitions:SoftBank’s Vision Fund has invested $160 billion globally, with India as a key market. Its portfolio includes Paytm, Swiggy, Ola Electric, Delhivery and FirstCry. After a brief lull, the fund has re-entered the market with smaller cheques in the $30-40 million range, evaluating startups like Ultrahuman.SoftBank’s acquisition-led play signals a deeper push to modernise legacy services with AI. It now wants to own the delivery rails where AI can drive meaningful scale and operational gains.Vidit Aatrey, CEO, MeeshoEcommerce marketplace Meesho has completed its reverse flip and shifted its domicile to India, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies reviewed by ET.”Meesho’s board met late on Sunday…and has approved the merger and share allotment to investors of the US entity. It is now a fully Indian company,” one of the persons said. The company is expected to file its draft IPO prospectus in the next two to three weeks.Nikhil (Left) and Nithin KamathNithin and Nikhil Kamath, cofounders of stockbroking platform Zerodha, have acquired a minority stake in InCred Holdings for Rs 250 crore.The investment comes as InCred prepares for a potential Rs 4,000-crore initial public offering (IPO). As of April, it was in discussions with IIFL Securities, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Nomura Holdings to rope them as advisors for the offer.The latest funding round raises the total funds secured by the Chennai-based startup to $13 million. Most of these funds will be used to establish a larger manufacturing facility in Karnataka, covering 80,000 to 100,000 square feet, cofounder Dhinesh Kanagaraj told us. Additional funds will also be allocated to expand the leadership team and strengthen client-facing engineering as well as R&D departments.The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group, led the funding round , which took Kazam’s total funding to $19.2 million, including $13 million from previous equity rounds.This was Darwinbox’s third such programme in four years, through which over 350 employees have sold their stock options to the company. The company did not disclose the amounts of its previous Esop buybacks but said this was Darwinbox’s largest such exercise.Union minister Ashwini VaishnawProviders such as Yotta, NextGen, and E2E Networks have made significant strides in installing and commissioning GPUs, while Jio Platforms and CtrlS Datacenters are yet to deploy theirs.The valuation , mentioned in Prosus’ latest annual report, is higher than the $1.8 billion ET reported after several rounds of pre-IPO secondary transactions over the past year.Indian startups are optimistic that the deal will enable them to depend less on overseas launch service providers like SpaceX, improve schedule visibility, and reduce costs.■ India is using AI and satellites to map urban heat vulnerability down to the building level ( Wired ■ LLMs factor in unrelated information when recommending medical treatments ( Massachusetts Institute of Technology — MIT News ■ Hinge CEO Justin McLeod says dating AI chatbots is ‘playing with fire’ ( The Verge

ID startups face data heat; Nykaa eases into qcomm

Also in the letter:

ID please? MeitY verifies the verifiers

What’s happened:

Under the lens:

Banks access the Aadhaar database under strict licence agreements to authenticate customers.

The government is now probing how these services are offering verification services, and whether the routes they use are compliant.

These platforms typically partner with financial institutions, consumer-facing startups and other entities to help them verify customers or businesses.

Their services are used to detect fraud and assess clients for underwriting.

Expert take:

Yes, but:

Also Read:

‘Quick commerce ops not hurting beauty biz, its aiding personal care’

Driving the news:

Why it matters:

Beauty is among the most competitive ecommerce categories, and quick commerce platforms are seeing strong growth from impulse-driven beauty buys.

Nykaa, however, is staying the course, pointing to its core category’s reliance on depth, shade options, and browsing behaviour.

“People browse a lot of shades and products before they buy. The nature of quick commerce doesn’t typically support that kind of assortment,” Nayar added.

By the numbers:

30% year-on-year growth in Nykaa’s beauty GMV over the past four quarters.

Delivery time cut from four days to two.

Same-day or next-day delivery is active in 100 cities.

Nykaa Now orders are currently fulfilled via dark stores, with other models under trial.

Also Read:

Go deeper:

Also Read:

Why vibe coding needs more than vibes for enterprise-scale solutions

What happened:

Also Read:

Golden use case:

Also Read:

Other Top Stories By Our Reporters

Lenskart becomes public limited company in preparation for IPO:

NCLAT rejects Byju’s resolution professional’s petition in Aakash shareholding row:

Sundar Pichai answers who would be next Google CEO:

Computational thinking is key as AI reshapes software: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella |

Global Picks We Are Reading

Happy Monday! Startups offering identity verification services are under the government’s scanner. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.■ Vibe coding needs more than vibes■ Lenskart’s IPO route■ Byju’s in NCLATThe government is investigating startups offering identity verification services for potential unauthorised access to the Aadhaar, permanent account number (PAN) and goods and services tax (GST) databases.The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) is investigating firms, including Surepass, Digitap, Zoop, and Signzy, over concerns they may have bypassed authorised protocols to access confidential databases. In response, MeitY has blocked access to some of these companies’ websites via telecom networks.Some verification startups collect customer application forms from clients and then scrape databases to confirm identity. According to an industry insider, this data is often available through open websites, unsecured APIs or even the dark web.Experts flagged a growing number of startups relying on such scraping techniques, potentially without proper authorisation.Companies such as Idfy, DigiO, Signzy and Datasutram are among the widely used in this space. However, only a few platforms have faced regulatory action so far, ET has learnt.As Blinkit, Zepto, and Instamart expand aggressively into beauty and personal care, Nykaa is taking a more slower, curated approach . Its quick commerce pilot, Nykaa Now, is live in select areas of Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bengaluru, with a deliberate focus on personal care rather than its core beauty range.“Nearly 80% of what we sell is beauty and 20% is personal care. Personal care is what’s really picking up on quick commerce,” Adwaita Nayar, cofounder and CEO of Nykaa Fashion, told us in an interview.Nykaa Now is designed as a separate merchandising layer, curated using demand signals and quick commerce-specific use cases. “It’s not about what Nykaa already sells, but what the customer really wants quickly. That’s more likely to be personal care or gifting,” Nayar said.While Nykaa is actively improving fulfilment speeds platform-wide, Nayar remains sceptical of the 10-minute delivery rush. “It’s not about 10 minutes. But people’s expectations for delivery speed globally are going up.”In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), vibe coding is all the rage, with companies and tech celebrities touting it as a simple way to build websites and apps using just a prompt. But the founders ET spoke to are highlighting the flip side.Executives said the growing trend of vibe coding, where developers rely on AI prompts to generate code, is triggering increased scrutiny, more rigorous code reviews, and a heavier burden on senior engineers to guide younger colleagues.As AI takes over the mechanics of coding, the new wave of engineers entering the workforce often lacks core programming knowledge. This has led to subpar code that requires additional checks and rarely reaches production without significant rework.Coding remains one of the most visible and impactful applications of AI. Around 30% of new code at Google and Microsoft is now AI-generated, and executives expect that share to grow over time..“There is an overdependence on LLMs, and this is leading to critical thinking issues,” said Nida Sahar, founder of bootstrapped cloud infrastructure platform Nife.io Piyush Bansal, CEO, LenskartOmnichannel eyewear brand Lenskart has become a public company in preparation for its public listing, changing its registered name from Lenskart Solutions Private Limited to Lenskart Solutions Limited through a special resolution passed by its shareholders.The Chennai bench of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Friday dismissed an appeal lodged by the resolution professional of Byju’s parent, Think & Learn, against an interim order that mandated the maintenance of the status quo on the shareholding of Aakash Institute.Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, expects AI to play a critical role in the tech giant’s future leadership at the Bloomberg Tech Conference. When asked whether a human or AI will run Google in the future, Pichai stated, “I do think whoever is running it will have an extraordinary AI companion.” In a recent conversation with tech YouTuber Sajjaad Khade, Nadella encouraged aspiring developers to concentrate on the fundamentals of software engineering, despite the increasing role of AI in coding. “Just getting real fundamentals of software, if you’re a software engineer, I think matters a lot,” Nadella said. “To me, having the ability to think computationally is important.”■ Apple’s struggles to update Siri lead to investor concerns over AI strategy ( FT ■ How Trump and Musk are still linked – despite falling out ( BBC ■ New apps help immigrants navigate Trump’s deportation crackdown ( Rest of World

Top tech and startup stories this week

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Top Stories This Week

Qcomm players dole out discounts even as cash burn, competition pinch:

Curbs on ecommerce dark patterns to raise compliance costs:

Quick commerce players running out of delivery riders as demand shoots up:

Quick commerce industry’s hygiene headache explained:

Sebi relaxes Esop norms for IPO-bound startup founders:

Startups, VCs chase India’s micro drama content play:

BlueStone set to enter unicorn club on road to IPO:

Bike-taxi platforms halt services in Bengaluru as HC ban order takes effect:

Also Read:

WhatsApp ads will not impact privacy, says Will Cathcart:

Also Read:

MakeMyTrip raises $3.1 billion to cut Chinese firm Trip’s holding:

IT, Tech News

PE funds pick up significant stakes in fast-growing tech firms:

Deeptech VCs rev up fundraising efforts:

Chinese rare earth squeeze raises alarms at electronics makers:

Foxconn plans to make iPhone enclosures in India:

Fintech Updates

As fintech lenders chase secured credit options, VCs up their bets:

Groww gets into corporate bond distribution, set to apply for Sebi licence:

Aspora raises $93 million from Sequoia Capital, Greylock and others:

Behind crackdown on startup’s unauthorised use of government databases:

Also Read:

Eye on AI

(AI)gorithm turns recruiter:

We would like to be DeepSeek in the West, says Essential AI cofounder:

Welcome to a new edition of ETtech Unwrapped – our weekend newsletter packed with the most important stories this week. Let’s take a look.Even as platforms attempt to rein in cash burn, discounting in the quick commerce sector has reached record highs , driven by intensifying competition.Government clampdown on dark patterns in ecommerce, quick commerce and ride-hailing will increase compliance burden on these companies , lawyers and industry executives said, but may not move the needle in the near-term in terms of addressing these issues.Quick commerce sector is facing difficulties in hiring and retaining delivery partners , as recruitment struggles to keep pace with surging demand for rapid deliveries.Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart, Flipkart Minutes, and BigBasket have opened hundreds of dark stores to meet rapid delivery timelines. But in the rush to scale, some players are cutting corners on hygiene and food safety.India’s markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), has eased rules for startup founders on retaining their employee stock options (Esops) as they take their companies public. Investors are getting hooked on short, binge-worthy micro dramas as the next big wave in India’s entertainment space, hoping to replicate the playbook of their Chinese counterparts.Omnichannel jewellery retailer BlueStone is set to become India’s newest unicorn , with a secondary deal valuing the company at around $1.2 billion, ahead of its public listing.Ride-hailing platforms Rapido, Uber and Ola suspended their bike taxi operations in Bengaluru with the Karnataka High Court order banning the service coming into effect Monday.WhatsApp’s monetisation efforts will not contravene user privacy, Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp at Meta, told us in an exclusive interview Online travel platform MakeMyTrip has raised $3.1 billion through a mix of equity and debt, its banker, Morgan Stanley, confirmed on Friday.Private equity funds are acquiring significant stakes in rapidly growing technology firms across high-growth sectors. At least four deals have been finalised since the start of 2025, according to investment bankers and industry executives.India’s deeptech-focused venture capital funds are stepping up their fundraising efforts , as the ecosystem matures with growing government backing and favourable geopolitical trends.China’s curbs on rare earth exports have set off alarm bells across the electronics industry, with speaker, wearable, and television manufacturers warning of looming shortages of permanent magnets.Apple’s largest supplier is setting up a unit in Oragadam, Tamil Nadu, to manufacture iPhone enclosures, as ET first reported on September 25 last year.Digital lending startups that once focused heavily on unsecured consumer credit are now transitioning towards secured lending , as the unsecured segment exhibits evident signs of a slowdown.Stockbroker Groww is planning to seek Sebi’s approval to offer trading in corporate bonds through its mobile application, according to two people in the know.Y Combinator-backed cross-border payments startup Aspora has raised $93 million over three equity funding rounds between September 2024 and May 2025, giving it a $500-million valuation, according to its founder, Parth Garg.The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has directed several technology-led startups to cease their offline Aadhaar-based know-your-customer (KYC) services , after they were found to be accessing Aadhar data through unauthorised channels.Artificial intelligence (AI) has become central to how recruiters identify the right talent , with AI handling 70–80% of the initial screening process at IT firms.We would like to be the ‘DeepSeek in the West’ , said Essential AI’s Ashish Vaswani, referring to the Chinese AI startup which rapidly gained prominence for developing high-performing and cost-efficient large language models.

Cred’s down round; Blinkit’s food safety woes

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Also in the letter:

Cred raises fresh funds from GIC, others; valuation cut by 45% to $3.5 billion

Deal details:

The round was entirely primary capital.

GIC’s Lathe Investment led the round with Rs 354 crore.

RTP Global invested Rs 74 crore, Sofina Ventures also participated Rs 25.8 crore.

QED Innovation Labs, Kunal Shah’s family office, put in Rs 162 crore.

Context:

Also Read:

Nexus to invest Rs 125 crore in Rapido ahead of food delivery launch

Driving the news:

Delivery plan:

Rapido will charge commissions ranging from 8% to 15%.

These rates are well below the 16% to 30% typically charged by Swiggy and Zomato, based on terms agreed with the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI).

Orders below Rs 400 will attract a fixed Rs 25 fee, while those above will be charged Rs 50.

What else:

Zepto Daily Pass (a subscription offering discounts and free delivery) is automatically added to carts, while free delivery coupons must be applied manually.

Customers are charged goods and services tax (GST) on the rain fee, which was meant to incentivise delivery partners, prompting backlash on social media.

Deep tech startup Vecmocon Tech raises $18 million:

Micro-drama OTT platform Flick TV raises $2.3 million:

Maharashtra FDA suspends food licence of Blinkit dark store in Pune

What happened:

Tell me more:

Food items placed directly on the floor

No pest control audit certificate

Workers in the food handling areas without protective caps

Food products stored on dusty racks

Cold storage facility lacking a calibration certificate

On alert:

Multiple packaged food brands have flagged poor hygiene and upkeep across some dark stores.

Authorities are now increasing scrutiny of such facilities, with FSSAI launching surprise audits across metro cities and tier-2 markets.

What else:

Zepto Daily Pass (a subscription offering discounts and free delivery) is automatically added to carts, while free delivery coupons must be applied manually.

Customers are charged goods and services tax (GST) on the rain fee, which was meant to incentivise delivery partners, prompting backlash on social media.

Kaynes Semicon, L&T Semiconductor Technologies to acquire Fujitsu General’s OSAT business

Deal details:

Fujitsu is transferring its power module production facilities to Kaynes.

Kaynes, which already manufactures for LTSCT, will produce these modules LTSCT’s behalf.

The transaction is expected to close on June 23, subject to regulatory approval under Japan’s Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act.

Why now:

Other Top Stories By Our Reporters

Situation involving Wolfspeed will have no impact on India OSAT: Renesas

Shares of Eternal, Swiggy drop as Rapido undercuts food delivery commission:

Krutrim announces agentic AI assistant ‘Kruti’, to launch on June 12:

Global Picks We Are Reading

Happy Tuesday! Cred has raised fresh funding at a steep cut in valuation. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.■ Kaynes, L&T Semicon’s new deal■ Renesas on Wolfspeed impact■ Swiggy, Eternal suffer on the boursesFintech major Cred has raised Rs 617 crore (around $72 million) in fresh funding at a sharply reduced valuation of $3.5 billion, down from its $6.4 billion peak in 2022. ET was the first to report about the down round on April 14.The markdown comes even as Cred’s FY24 revenue jumped 66% to Rs 2,473 crore. However, losses widened 22% to Rs 1,644 crore.Nexus Venture Partners will invest Rs 125 crore (around $15 million) in mobility unicorn Rapido as a part of a larger round from last year that valued the company at $1.1 billion , according to a filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).The funding comes just ahead of Rapido’s entry into food delivery , with a Bengaluru pilot set to launch later this month or early July. Rapido has finalised partnership terms with restaurants, offering commissions significantly lower than those of Swiggy and Zomato.Zepto is also facing mounting criticism online over its use of alleged dark patterns. Two common user complaints:Deep tech startup Vecmocon Technologies has raised $18 million in a funding round led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF), with participation from Blume Ventures and Aavishkaar Capital. The latest raise includes $8 million in fresh capital, and builds on the $10 million raised in November 2024. That earlier round was also led by EIF, alongside Blume Ventures and British International Investment (BII).Micro-drama OTT platform Flick TV has raised $2.3 million in seed funding led by Stellaris Venture Partners. The startup is looking to capture India’s growing appetite for short-form, mobile-first video content in India.Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has suspended the food licence of quick commerce platform Blinkit at its Balewadi store in Pune for non-compliance with food safety regulations.On June 5, the Maharashtra FDA officials inspected a Blinkit facility near Mitcon College in Balewadi and found it operating without a licence from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for production, distribution or sale of food items.The inspection also uncovered several food safety violations, including:This comes a week after Zepto’s facility in Dharavi had its food business licence suspended for similar violations.Zepto is also facing mounting criticism online over its use of alleged dark patterns. Two common user complaints:Mysuru-based Kaynes Semicon and Bengaluru-based L&T Semiconductor Technologies (LTSCT) are acquiring the outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) power modules business of Japan’s Fujitsu General for Rs. 118.34 crore.Raghu Panicker, chief executive, Kaynes Semicon, told us, “The new OSAT facility being set up in Sanand, Gujarat, is launching its operations with a focus on the global power device packaging market.”This move is backed by two major developments: a multi-million-dollar, high-volume service agreement with its customer Alpha and Omega Semiconductor (AOS) and the acquisition of three power packaging lines from Fujitsu Electronics Limited, Japan, he explained.| Japanese chipmaker Renesas has stated that the situation involving Wolfspeed will have “no impact” on its OSAT project in India . Reports of a potential bankruptcy filing by the US-based silicon carbide (SiC) wafer maker have been sending shockwaves through the global semiconductor industry, with experts suggesting that it could affect Murugappa group-owned CG Power’s forthcoming outsourced semiconductor assembly and test facility (OSAT) in Sanand.Shares of Zomato’s parent company, Eternal, and its rival, Swiggy, fell by as much as 2.5% and 4% on Monday following an ET report stating that Rapido plans to launch its food delivery services this month, offering significantly lower commissions to restaurants compared to the two major players.Bhavish Aggarwal’s artificial intelligence (AI) company Krutrim on Monday announced its agentic assistant ‘Kruti’ , months after the founder first teased the chatbot. In a post on X, Krutrim said Kruti, India’s first agentic AI assistant, “listens, adapts and acts proactively, purposefully and in your language”.■ Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning digital ID project to launch in UK ( FT ■ Inside the race to find GPS alternatives ( MIT Technology Review ■ Silicon Valley led the quest for driverless cars. But Chinese robotaxis are catching up fast ( Rest of World

Top tech and startup stories this week

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Top Stories This Week

Most listed new-age startups improve Q4 profitability; Swiggy, Ola lag behind:

Ecommerce’s in-house delivery turn flips third-party logistics biz script:

Good Glamm delays paying salaries again amid cash crunch:

Also Read:

Pushing value meals and 10-min food delivery to revive growth:

Swiggy’s Rohit Kapoor |

Regulators realising fintechs are here to stay: QED’s Nigel Morris |

Startup Street

Startups leverage distribution chops to gain ground in general insurance:

Rapid fashion delivery gathers pace, but long-term viability in question:

Krutrim finds few takers for its LLMs and cloud products:

Fintech News

Digital payment firms in a no-win game as margins hit rock bottom:

New-age life insurers tap group business opportunity in their first year of ops:

UPI transactions rise 4.4% in May after April decline:

Funding Updates

Udaan closes latest funding round at $114 million:

Inflexor VC eyes Q2 first close of $150-million Fund-III:

Eye on AI

Job losses: How AI has painfully disrupted dreams of young software engineering graduates |

Finding Gen XX among GenAI leaders:

Tech and Policy

Tata Electronics eyes Malaysia foray via chip fab acquisition:

CG Power’s chip plans rocked by turmoil at wafer company Wolfspeed:

IndiaAI empanelment drives down prices of GPUs in second round:

Around The World

Welcome to a new edition of ETtech Unwrapped – our weekend newsletter packed with the most important stories this week. Let’s take a look.Out of the 17 new-age companies listed on Indian stock exchanges, 11 reported an improvement in profitability for the January-March quarter, either by expanded profits or narrower losses, in a sign of better operational performance. This group includes Nykaa, Delhivery, BlackBuck, Paytm, Policybazaar, Go Digit, Ather Energy and Ixigo.The largest Indian ecommerce firms have moved deliveries in-house , hurting third-party logistics (3PL) players and leading to a consolidation in the sector. Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho now account for about 82% of India’s ecommerce parcel volumes, according to a report by ICICI Securities. This has forced pure-play logistics operators to draw up new ways to stay relevant.Beauty products and content company Good Glamm Group, which is grappling with a cash crunch and seeking to raise capital at a significantly marked-down valuation, has delayed employee salaries for the second consecutive month, people familiar with the matter told us.Amid a slowdown in the food delivery market, aggregators are chasing the next phase of growth with Bengaluru-based Swiggy focusing on three areas to drive demand Fintechs are no longer scrappy outsiders in the financial world; they are scaling faster than traditional players, dominating high-growth segments and increasingly being recognised by regulators as a permanent feature in the financial services industry, according to QED Investors cofounder Nigel Morris.As insurance penetration in India remains a challenge, more startups are looking to leverage their distribution capabilities to grab a chunk of the general insurance market.New-age brands like Newme, Slikk and Blipp, as well as ecommerce platforms such as Myntra, Ajio and Nykaa are all exploring ultra-fast delivery for fashion and apparel. The latest to join the race is Bengaluru-based D2C brand Snitch.Krutrim, the artificial intelligence (AI) arm of the Ola group, has received tepid response for its large language models (LLMs) and cloud products, according to some founders and developers who have evaluated these offerings.The digital payments ecosystem has become intensely competitive with the Reserve Bank of India issuing payment aggregator (PA) licences to more than 50 entities, pushing core transaction processing margins to what industry executives see as unsustainable levels.New-age life insurers Acko, Go Digit and CreditAccess, all of whom received life insurance licences in 2023, are betting on group products to drive premium collection and the business.Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the real-time payment system operated by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), processed 18.68 billion transactions in May, recovering from a dip in April.Vaibhav Gupta, CEO, UdaanBusiness-to-business ecommerce platform Udaan has closed a $114 million funding round led by existing investors M&G Prudential (UK) and Lightspeed Venture Partners, the company said in a press statement.Early-stage venture capital firm Inflexor Ventures is eyeing the first close of its $150 million (Rs 1,250 crore) Fund III by the end of the second quarter, partner Murali Krishna Gunturu told us.Programming languages like Java, C++, and Python have done more than just build software. They built lives. For years, they offered a ticket to stable jobs, upward mobility, and a way out of the lower-middle-class trap. Millions rode that wave, often becoming the first in their families to do so. Then came AI . And with it, the middle class’s dreams, written in the promise of software, are under threat.There are nearly 7,000 active women-led startups in India. The number may seem huge, but it is only 7.5% of the total pool, according to data from Tracxn. In the tech space, these startups have so far collectively raised $26.4 billion , with 2021 attracting the most funds at $6.3 billion.Tata Electronics is in talks with several global semiconductor companies including X-Fab, DNeX and Globetronics to acquire a fabrication or outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) plant in Malaysia, according to people in the know.Reports of a likely bankruptcy filing by US-based silicon carbide (SiC) wafer maker Wolfspeed are sending shockwaves through the global semiconductor industry and could impact Murugappa group-owned CG Power’s upcoming OSAT facility in Sanand, experts told us.An analysis of the lowest (L1) prices released by the IndiaAI Mission for the second round of the tender for graphics processing units (GPU) shows an up to 10% fall in prices compared with the first round.