On Independence Day this year, just six days after it went public, Ola Electric launched three new electric motorbikes. This was a bold move, especially considering that electric vehicles haven’t really clicked with the Indian audience yet. The exception to that rule has been electric two and three wheelers, which had some unexpected success in tier-2 India. But motorcycles are not scooters. People still prefer their 125cc ICE bikes. So, it’s a difficult space to break into. But if there is one ...
Sep 10, 2024•14 min•Ep. 311
Three days ago, Rapido, the bike taxi company, became India’s latest unicorn after it raised $200 million at a valuation of over $1 billion. The funding round which was led by WestBridge Capital also saw new investors put in their money into the company. In an interview to the ET , CEO Aravind Sanka said that the funds will be used to expand Rapido's newly launched four-wheeler taxi service, which competes with Ola and Uber. But here’s the thing. Ever since it started, Rapido has consciously sta...
Sep 08, 2024•13 min•Ep. 310
"Google is a monopolist and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly." Last month, Judge Amit P Mehta of of US District Court for the District of Columbia delivered a historic ruling against one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Google was accused of abusing its dominance by paying the likes of Apple and Samsung billions of dollars to make its search engine the default option on their smartphones and browsers. It is being called the biggest antitrust case of the century. And ...
Sep 06, 2024•49 min•Ep. 309
Dunzo, the Reliance Retail-backed quick delivery company, let go off 75% of its workforce in fresh round of layoffs earlier this week. But for the longest time, Dunzo has been an anomaly. Its a small company that has managed to make its name a verb. Like Google but Google is a giant. Its revenue was just $7 million dollars in the year that ended in 2022. For perspective, Zomato made more than 70 times that amount in the same period, But it did not matter. Because it changed our lives and it beca...
Sep 04, 2024•28 min•Ep. 308
There was once a time, not very long ago, when every company wanted to be a fintech. Food delivery, ride hailing, e-commerce – companies that you would not otherwise associate with financial services. And when you think about it, it does add up. A couple years ago, fintech was where the money was at. Indian fintechs received nearly 9 billion dollars in funding in calendar year 2021. It was one the hottest sectors in the country. The inside joke among venture capitalists was how founders could ra...
Sep 04, 2024•9 min•Ep. 307
In the last decade, the number of people covered by health insurance has more than doubled. Of course, big hospitals – both the state funded ones and the private ones that look a lot like five-star resorts – are making the most of it. They are really raking it in. But there is a sizeable chunk of the healthcare system that is left out. The small, private hospitals that make up nearly 85 per cent of the industry. This is the ‘missing middle’. It’s disorganized and severely underfunded. It’s also ...
Sep 03, 2024•11 min•Ep. 306
For a while now, some of the biggest players in India’s third-party logistics industry have been riding on the success of e-commerce unicorn Meesho. As of 2023, it accounted for over half of the 2.5 billion shipments that were being handled by third-party logistics players. Companies like Delhivery and Ecom Express happily rose to the occasion and partnered with Meesho to handle all its order deliveries. For logistics companies this was a dream come true because most of the other major e-commerc...
Sep 01, 2024•14 min•Ep. 305
When it comes to electric vehicles, China is the crownless king. Nothing new there. But what was news to us was when Bhavish Aggarwal recently announced at an event that his company, Ola Electric, is the world’s largest electric two-wheeler manufacturer and the fourth-largest EV company in the world. It left everyone scratching their heads for a few seconds until they noticed the fine print at the bottom of the powerpoint slide — marked with an asterisk, in tiny lettering, it said excluding Chin...
Aug 29, 2024•45 min•Ep. 304
A big reason when we choose to buy online instead of going to a store depends on how easy the e-commerce company makes it to return stuff. So far, with most companies, all you have to do is ask for a return on the app or website and someone comes to your doorstep and picks it up. While e-commerce companies have been wooing you with the option, in reality they hate returns because reverse logistics are a costly affair for them. Which is why e-commerce platforms like Ajio and Myntra are changing t...
Aug 29, 2024•25 min•Ep. 303
There was once a time, not too long ago, when you could walk into a young working professional’s rented home in a tier-1 city, and all the furniture would look pretty familiar. About a decade ago, everyone and their uncle was renting furniture from the two OG rental platforms Rentomojo and Furlenco. It just made sense. When Rentomojo and Furlenco were launched about a decade ago, they were like an answer to a lot of people’s prayers. It was a great deal – your fridge, washing machine, king sized...
Aug 28, 2024•11 min•Ep. 302
Lenders are flouting every rule in their books to cater to the rising gold-loan demand. Thanks to the collusion between lenders and borrowers at some of the branches, one in ten gold loans every month is sanctioned through malpractices—like tweaking weight and misreporting purity of gold, said two industry executives. In this episode, we delve into the murky world of gold loans and what often goes wrong when borrowers seek them out. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken , In...
Aug 27, 2024•15 min•Ep. 301
If you’ve ever taken a loan from a non bank or an NBFC, the EMI is usually auto-debited from your account every month. But if you missed a payment, you know what usually goes down. You are inundated with phone calls from your lender and maybe agents even start visiting your home. Not an ideal situation for you or your lender. But now, your lender can just monitor your account and deduct the money as soon as it comes into your account…all thanks to that auto-debit permission you granted. Earlier,...
Aug 25, 2024•12 min•Ep. 300
The pandemic disrupted everyone's travel plans. But now, everyone is travelling with a vengeance and it's really overloading the systems. With visa appointment slots hard to come by, travel agents have turned securing visa dates into a profitable business. Meanwhile, embassies and consulates are trying hard to limit the wait list. And at the center of this anxiety-inducing maze is one company called VFS global that handles the visa application process for more than 150 of the world’s 195 countri...
Aug 22, 2024•26 min•Ep. 299
What really makes UPI successful? The number of transactions. In FY2024, for example, more than 130 billion transactions were carried out through UPI. But it's not enough. UPI needs more and more to the point where now it has become a transaction-hungry monster. And NPCI National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), government body that runs UPI has to constantly come up with ways to feed this ever-hungry monster. Its latest offering is delegated payments. Earlier this month, Reserve Bank of In...
Aug 22, 2024•10 min•Ep. 298
Many thought the fall of WeWork – as quick and public as it was – was the final nail in the coffin for the fledgling coworking space business. But a few years later, the pandemic is over and people are finally making their way back to their workplaces. The end of work from home has given the coworking space a new lease on life and one Delhi-based startup in particular is really standing out. Awfis, a nine-year-old flexible workspace company, is breaking pretty much every rule in the coworking sp...
Aug 20, 2024•10 min•Ep. 297
For more than two decades, India’s jewellery industry has been dominated by one name and one name only – Tanishq. The Titan-owned brand has managed to become the go-to jewellery store for people across the country. Some may even call it the gold standard…literally. But since last year, things have been changing. Tanishq’s dominance is being challenged. Not by some massive international player or any other pan-India brand. Nope. Instead, it is regional players that are starting to dim Tanishq’s s...
Aug 19, 2024•10 min•Ep. 296
Tech platforms like Google, Meta, or even e-marketplaces such as Olx are increasingly becoming hotbeds of online advertising scams in India. People have been losing anything from a few thousands to even a few crore rupees to cyber crime syndicates who have proficient, tech-savvy members. The amount of money consumers have reported losing to fraud that originated on social-media platforms has skyrocketed since 2017. Last year alone, people reported losing more than $1.2 billion to fraud that star...
Aug 19, 2024•16 min•Ep. 295
In Mumbai last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India was entering the bid to host the Summer Olympic Games in 2036. Yup, bidding happens more than a decade before the actual event. Because that’s how long it takes to prep a city for the Olympics. At the same event, PM Modi said hosting the games India is the “age-old dream and aspiration of 140 crore Indians”. You see, the prestige associated with hosting the Olympics is undeniable…many would say, it is priceless. If you think ...
Aug 15, 2024•37 min•Ep. 294
For many in the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), this year’s Union Budget announcement was a damp squib. On 23 July, several officials from the ticketing-and-catering arm of Indian Railways waited for over an hour, with the collective hope that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would quash the discounts on UPI payments. The reason behind their discontent is that the discount has cost IRCTC an arm and a leg. The company has lost Rs 40 crore in revenue. But despite all of...
Aug 13, 2024•12 min•Ep. 293
Fertility rates in India are not looking good. In fact, it has fallen below the necessary replacement fertility level, which is basically the total fertility rate at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration. So to nip the issue in the bud, state governments are now stepping in to offer what private equity-backed fertility centres would otherwise charge lakhs of rupees for: IVF treatment for free. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s becaus...
Aug 13, 2024•12 min•Ep. 292
Every year, nearly three lakh students flock to the city of Kota in Rajasthan, the coaching capital of the country. Almost half of them enroll themselves at Allen Career Institute, a 36 year-old pioneering coaching centre that was last valued at over 1 billion dollars. Lately, Kota’s reputation has been under question because of the frequent student suicides. This has obviously affected the number of students coming in and for the first time in its history, the coaching giant Allen is seeing a f...
Aug 11, 2024•10 min•Ep. 291
The search for an ideal workplace is a bit like finding El Dorado — that land of endless wealth and opportunities. Like El Dorado, 'the ideal workplace' also, well, seems like a myth. But that doesn't stop people from striving to find one. This is a conversation that goes right back to the birth of the modern corporation. From the civil rights movement in the US, to the evolution of trade unions in India – throughout history, people have fought for a fair and equitable workplace. One that has eq...
Aug 08, 2024•57 min•Ep. 290
From September 2, IDFC Bank’s credit card customers will only have to pay 2% of the total bill amount every month instead of the earlier 5%. The bank has reduced the minimum amount due (MAD). Even Axis Bank did this last year in November. This means for customers, there are lesser chances of being tagged as a defaulters which hurts their credit score. Why are banks doing this? Two bankers told The Ken that the main reason why banks or lenders are reducing MAD is because of rising defaults. India...
Aug 08, 2024•10 min•Ep. 289
The last nine years have been quite a wild ride for Cars24. I t has gone from being a consumer-to-business auction platform for dealers to buy used cars, to becoming a consumer-to-consumer marketplace for used cars. It has seen its fair share of highs and lows along the way. Off late, once again, the business has been floundering. But Cars24 is dealing with it by undergoing its most intense and unexpected makeover yet. It seems to be transforming into a full-blown fintech. The startup got a non-...
Aug 06, 2024•11 min•Ep. 288
Last year, the central bank banned Razorpay and a bunch of its competitors, like PayTM, Cashfree and PayU, from onboarding new merchants until they were able to secure a payment aggregator license. Till then, they all had in principal approvals for the license. But the RBI stepped in and said they had to stop onboarding merchants until they actually got the license. It was only in December that the RBI lifted the ban after Razorpay finally received the license. Obviously, it was a big day for Ra...
Aug 06, 2024•12 min•Ep. 287
Jupiter, the Mumbai based neobank, went from a $70 million valuation in 2019 to a $700 million valuation in just two years. Venture capitalists, along with fintech founders, continue to believe in neobanks. A report by Statista predicts that the transaction value across neobanks in India is will cross $150 Bn by 2027. Jupiter, a leader in the space, quadrupled its user base to two million in just a year in 2022. Thanks to its efficient user experience to access banking products like savings acco...
Aug 05, 2024•12 min•Ep. 286
"I am willing to take the risk and give this drug a shot, for I've tried and tested almost all anti-obesity means myself—and even failed at some. As a first step, I am banking on other Ozempic users’ experience." Meet Alifiya Khan, a health and education reporter at The Ken. Last month, she published a story on Ozempic, the 'miracle' weight-loss drug, and how easy it is to procure despite not being officially cleared for sale by the Indian government. But this isn’t just another health story. Al...
Aug 01, 2024•40 min•Ep. 285
A few days ago, an X user shared a screenshot of Google Maps depicting how it would be faster to walk than drive from a particular place to another in Bengaluru. After all, the city is best known for two things: great weather and terrible traffic. The so-called Silcon Valley of India is the sixth slowest city in the world! How is it then that no one has come up with some innovative tech-based solutions? Actually, they have. But you’ll be surprised to know that one the key reasons why the city's ...
Aug 01, 2024•12 min•Ep. 284
Microschools are basically a modern twist on the concept of a one-room school house. So smaller classes, student-led learning, a flexible curriculum, the works. So for instance, if traditional schools teach the photosynthesis phenomenon through textbook readings, a microschool would nudge students to conduct interactive experiments with plants and light. In most of these schools, there’s no fixed curriculum. Its personalised as per the needs of each student. Sounds ideal right? Except for the fa...
Jul 31, 2024•12 min•Ep. 283
Craving a low-cal, zero-sugar, guilt free tub of ice cream? Well then, Hocco isn't for you. The ice cream brand, founded by Havmor scion Ankit Chona, takes great pride in making and selling ice cream the old fashioned way. It's a brave choice considering low-cal ice cream is really having its moment. VCs seem to believe that ice cream is a dish best served cold...and sugar free. But Chona is sticking to his guns. And if the numbers are anything to go by, his bet seems to be paying off. Tune in....
Jul 30, 2024•10 min•Ep. 282
