The CapTable

Seven years ago, Pixxel started out by building satellites that could capture what conventional Earth-observation satellites couldn’t. Read this article for free In addition, access 50+ archived articles and 3 new articles every month Sign In Got a tip?

For nearly a decade, Shiprocket built its business around logistics, as a pureplay courier aggregator. However, in recent times, it has moved beyond logistics to create a full-stack, AI-driven technology platform for online sellers and digital-first businesses. To put it simply, Shiprocket not only helps sellers connect with courier partners but also provides merchants the tools and systems they need to streamline and scale their ecommerce operations.

Until a few years ago, many Indian dairy companies treated the liquid left behind after making cheese as something to be disposed of. Today, that same byproduct is helping justify complex investments in what has traditionally been a difficult business. Cheese requires heavy capital, ties up money in inventory, and serves a relatively small market.

Eleven-year-old Athvik Amith Kumar walked into a room of investors on Bharat Ke Super Founders, a reality show on Amazon Prime Video,and asked them to invest Rs 2 crore in his startup at a valuation of Rs 25 crore. Athvik pitched ZOZOconnect, a startup that addresses a problem he noticed while attending events with his parents: piles of business cards were exchanged and eventually discarded. “The cards were on floors, at tables, at cafeterias, even in trash bins.

India has formally kicked off the second leg of its semiconductor push, with the government notifying all six pillars of Semicon 2.0 earlier this week. The programme widens the focus from chip design and fabrication to machines and materials, advanced packaging, R&D and talent development, as India seeks to make good a late start in an industry that is becoming increasingly critical to the global economy.

Ather had an eventful week, both on the product front and in the market. On Saturday, at its fourth annual Community Day, the Bengaluru-based company unveiled a new electric scooter, Konarc, along with a new-generation battery platform, apartment charging system, and connected vehicle-health product. Starting at Rs 99,999, and with deliveries slated for later this month, Konarc is the first scooter built on Ather's new EL platform.

Here is a number that should worry every investor and policymaker in India more than it currently does: 17 lakh. This is roughly how much capital has been invested for every direct and indirect job generated under India’s Production-Linked Incentive scheme so far. Now, the PLI is a strategic scheme whose primary objective is to revive manufacturing in the country and not jobs, but it is important to understand that investment in manufacturing does not automatically create jobs.

With hindsight, a lot of folks say it was obvious that Rapido would end up becoming the inevitable success it has. But very few had the foresight of Kunal Khattar to write a cheque early for the country’s most popular mobility startup. This is a premium article and available only to subscribers.

Value is in and volume is out. This is the evolving theme of one of India’s recent success stories: global capability centres (GCCs). GCCs were once built around large teams doing cost-competitive work; they are now increasingly being built around smaller, high-impact teams focused on AI, data, digital engineering, and product innovation. Read this article for free In addition, access 50+ archived articles and 3 new articles every month Sign In Got a tip?

If you have ordered a kurta for your parents because the app confused them, or helped the domestic help shop online because she could not find her way past the login, then this is probably not news to you: online shopping in India still leaves a lot of people out. A report by the National Council of Applied Economic Research, released in June, gives a sense of how wide this exclusion runs.