Daybreak

Rare-earth magnets, made from elements like neodymium and praseodymium, are essential to EV motors. But nearly all of them come from China. And since April, not a single shipment has arrived. Maruti Suzuki has already slashed production. TVS and Bajaj are counting down to a July deadline. Others, like Mahindra and Omega Seiki, saw this coming and started building workarounds.

This isn’t just a supply chain issue. It’s a geopolitical move. China controls over 90% of rare-earth processing and has tightened export rules, stalling approvals to countries like India. Now, even importing magnets requires a bureaucratic maze...

Post-pandemic, retail giants like Reliance and Aditya Birla Fashion were ready to bounce back and they weren’t being very subtle about it. Reliance Retail for instance opened nearly 6000 stores across fashion, groceries, electronics just in FY22 and FY23. But the retail dream of a booming post-Covid shopping spree that companies had sold themselves never really happened. Soon these companies had to hit rewind. Thousands of jobs were gone and hundreds of stores had to be closed down. 

Turns out, India’s fashion retail scene is scrambling for a reset.

But what exact...

Everybody wants to invest, but not everyone knows how. There just aren’t many who can point investors in the right direction.

Registered investment advisors, or RIAs—either individuals or corporates licensed by the stock-market regulator—are an endangered species in India. While the country had about 192 million demat accounts as of March 2025, there were only about 941 advisors. That’s one advisor for over 200,000 investors. Pressure much?

You’d think the problem goes away if there were more Sebi-registered advisors. If only. In fact, the number of registered advisors in India has been declining over the past f...

Over the last four years, Croma has found itself in a curious spot. On paper, it’s Tata Digital’s crown jewel—contributing over half of its revenue and crossing ₹18,000 crore in sales last year. But behind the scenes, it’s also become Tata Digital’s favourite testing ground.

From sudden team transfers — like its entire marketing team being moved to Tata Digital overnight — to shifting strategies, Croma has borne the brunt of Tata’s endless experimentation. The result? Cracks in its business model, ballooning losses, but also one big silver lining: a 20 million-strong customer base that could be its ticke...

While Prada walks the ramp in Kolhapuris, here in India, Bata, the brand that once defined middle-class respectability, can barely find its footing. Bata which was once a household name, a back-to-school essential, a symbol of quality without fuss, is now finding itself squeezed. Too expensive for the value-hunting Zudio crowd and not fancy enough for the Birkenstock and Crocs-wearing folks.

Which is why Sandeep Kataria’s recent resignation as global CEO feels like a full circle moment. After all, it was under his leadership that Bata tried to pivot from utility to aspiration. But was it...

Category managers have shifted from routine e-commerce roles to powerful decision-makers in quick commerce. They now manage the limited shelf space in dark stores and decide which products get visibility on platforms like Instamart, Zepto, and Blinkit. 

Naturally, brands are aggressively courting them, with over 30,000 requests every month for just 150 slots. From hosting parties to taking them out for drinks, brands are pulling out all the stops. 

Meanwhile, category managers are urging brands to invest more in ads and marketing to stay competitive.

Tune in.

*This episode was first published on...

Turns out, in India’s healthcare industry, prevention isn’t just better than cure—it’s also far more investable.

The new buzzword making the rounds? Health assurance. Not insurance—assurance.

It means what it sounds like. Unlike traditional insurance, which kicks in after you fall sick, health assurance is about keeping you healthy to begin with.

A Pune-based startup called Loop Health was the first to introduce India to a variant of the same concept. 

It positions itself as a corporate broker, not an insurer. So it doesn’t und...

The rise and fall of Pharmeasy is well documented. Once the poster child of the e-pharmacy boom, it reached a dizzying valuation of 5.6 bn USD at its very peak. But unfortunately, as we all know now, it didn’t last. 

Today the company is worth just 450 million USD – which, is a 90 per cent drop. From aggressive acquisitions to regulatory hurdles, and a failed IPO, Pharmeasy’s journey has been a cautionary tale of overreach.

But the brains behind the operation – Siddharth Shah – isn’t done yet. 

He’s back...

Tata Electronics is assembling iPhones in Karnataka, aiming to become a key player in Apple’s global supply chain.

In this episode, we look at how the company is scaling by adding factories, hiring thousands of workers, and investing heavily in automation.

But it’s also facing high attrition, rising debt, and pressure to meet Apple’s strict standards.

Can Tata turn its manufacturing push into a long-term win?

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exc...

In this episode, we turn the spotlight on one of the most powerful yet elusive figures in Indian e-commerce: Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the everywhere-all-the-time CEO of Flipkart. Flipkart, backed by Walmart, was once India’s great e-commerce hope. But lately, the tides have been turning.

Walmart is flying high, outperforming Amazon globally, dominating grocery delivery, and raking in ad dollars with a valuation that’s outshining even Apple. But six years after buying Flipkart, Walmart’s patience is wearing thin. Profits still remain elusive. And Krishnamurthy who has been recognised as a wartime CEO is starting to look more l...

For the longest time, getting accepted to Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley startup accelerator was like getting a golden ticket for your startup. It was suddenly on the map not just in India but in Silicon Valley, too. 

For Indian founders who made it, the story of success began with a journey west. Set up in Delaware, impress YC, and get some of that Silicon Valley shine. But what happens when that dream starts looking more like a detour than a destination?Earlier this week, the online market place Meesho, once a poster child from the YC p...

In a recent, 10-page note recapping its investing journey, Info Edge (India) founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani proudly, and justifiably, called Zomato and Policybazaar “breakout successes”, “winners”, and “outliers”.

A few days earlier, Zomato, now renamed Eternal, had released its sobering financials for the three months ended March. 

So what’s Infoedge doing about it? Apart from its own businesses – spanning recruitment, real estate, matrimony and education – it owns roughly 12.5% each of Eternal and PB Fintech, the parent of insurance marketplace Policybazaar, and has not sold a single share in either since they started trading.

The reaso...

Indians are hungry for luxury watches. Just in 2024, even as exports of Swiss watches declined globally, they surged 25 per cent in India. 

Interestingly, the player winning in this fast-growing market is not a legacy business house like Tata or Reliance, rather it is little-know Chandigarh-based retailer, Ethos. 

What sets it apart is the strong relationships it has built with ultra-luxury watch makers over the decades. How does it do it? 

Tune in. 

Want to attend The Ken's next event on health, fitness and wellness? Buy tickets here. Here's your chance to help...

Dream Sports, the company behind Dream11, just bought a piece of Cricbuzz from Times Internet for $50 million. It also bought a stake in Willow TV, a cricket broadcaster in the U.S.

As you probably know, Dream11’s core business is fantasy sports. But no thanks to new taxes and regulatory friction, their business isn’t looking so good lately. Revenue projections are down, growth is slowing, and they haven’t raised fresh money since 2021.

Cricbuzz, meanwhile,  has hundreds of millions of monthly visits. That too mostly young users which is exactly the kind of crow...

For nearly a decade, Swiggy and Zomato have fed our hunger and dominated prime real estate on our phone screens, leaving very little room for any serious challengers.

Most who tried to break in got their fingers burnt before they even got started. But now, a new player has decided to throw its hat into the ring. 

 This is a player that has some experience taking on titans, though the last time around it was in a completely different space. Rapido – the Bangalore-based startup that quietly muscled its way into India’s ride-hailing market  – is all se...

The luggage industry seems to have undergone quite a makeover in the last few years. Back in the day, VIP and Safari were synonymous with the plain black and grey suitcases. But now, luggage is as important as the clothes you wear–it’s part of the whole airport look.
Startups like Mokobara, Nasher Miles, Assembly, and Uppercase have turned luggage into an aspirational lifestyle product with smart social-media marketing and a vibrant aesthetic.

Also, important to note is that travel changed after Covid pandemic. The duration of trips has shortened, but the frequency of general trav...

Last month, The Ken set out on a quest to understand how deep AI’s roots have grown in Indian companies. We asked India’s employees across industries and experience levels the extent to which they were using AI tools on a day to day and how it had changed workplace dynamics for them. 

Nearly 500 people took our survey. Nine out of 10 of them said they had begun using AI tools, even if it meant paying for them out of their own pocket. 

Once we got a sense of how employees were feelin...

The Indian wealth-management industry is booming and everyone wants a piece of the action. But here’s the twist: as the industry explodes, the people managing all that wealth have become the real prize.

In a business that caters not just to the top 1%, but the top 0.01% of India’s elite, having the best wealth managers on your roster isn’t just important—it’s everything.

And one four-year-old upstart got that memo early. Neo Group has been on an aggressive hiring spree, planning to add at least 70 new wealth managers this financial year.

B...

Elon Musk’s Starlink is just months away from launching in India. Amazon’s Kuiper will follow in 2026. The satcom green light is finally here — the regulator’s long-awaited guidelines are out, and the Department of Telecom has drawn up its strict new rulebook. Surprisingly, the satellite players aren’t blinking. Even more surprising? After years of resistance, Jio and Airtel have suddenly struck deals with Starlink.

But here’s the twist: behind the scenes, neither telco seems eager to actually sell Starlink terminals. So why the sudden handshake? And what’s really going on under all this satellite...

Like much of the world, India is heavily reliant on China for its rare earth supplies. In FY25 alone, we imported 870 tonnes of rare earth magnets, worth over ₹300 crore. China controls about 60–70% of global rare earth production and around 90% of the world’s refining capacity. 

Decades ago, while other countries hesitated over environmental and social costs, China made a ruthless, calculated bet — sacrifice land, people, and air to dominate the rare earths future.

Now we are in that future and China has thrown a spanner in the works. It has imposed fresh restrictions on magnet exports...

Protein is having a moment in India. Once reserved for gym-goers and bodybuilders, it’s now showing up in everyday foods like idli, rotis, chips, lassi, even kulfi. And consumers are buying in.

Behind this craze is a $1.5 billion strategy that’s reshaping how India eats. Food brands saw a gap in a country where nearly two out of three households are protein deficient. And they turned it into a goldmine. Now, protein is everywhere, and the market is only getting bigger.

But here’s the twist: while the labels scream '50g protein' and 'fuel...

Indian finserv is no koi pond. It's a shark tank. And now, some of the biggest sharks in the tank – payment aggregators like Phonepe, Razorpay, Cashfree and Paytm – are all narrowing in on the aggregator of aggregators, Juspay. 

In this episode, we go behind the scenes of one of the biggest fintech standoffs of the year. On one side are the aggregators, who power payments for millions of online merchants. And on the other side is “aggregator of aggregators” Juspay, who’s worked as an extension of merchants’ payments teams, helping them coordinate payments across aggreg...

Of the 5,000 graduates offered jobs in 2022—the majority of whose joining was delayed by two years—755 have been laid off so far for failing to clear tests.

The assessments this time were tougher than usual, said five trainees and ex-employees The Ken spoke to. The threshold for passing was raised from 50% to 65%. On top of this, new material was added, and the number of questions was increased.

Then again, the times are changing. India’s IT-services industry has been a driver of economic growth for over two decades, contributing 7% to the country’s GDP and employin...

Tesla’s story in India has been more like a stalled engine than a roaring electric debut—despite years of headlines, high-level meetings, and hopeful tweets. While the Indian government did slash import duties on premium EVs from a staggering 110% to a friendlier 15%, it wasn’t enough. Because for Tesla, this isn't just about taxes. It is about suppliers, standards, scale, and most importantly, timing. But India wants Tesla.

Prime ministers have courted the company. Officials have tweaked policies. Showrooms are being prepped. And yet, eight years after the Model 3 opened bookings in India, those cool-looking cars are no...

In this special episode, hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose are joined by Soumya Rajan, founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors, India’s largest multi-family office and wealth advisory firm. The conversation begins with a simple but important question: what does financial empowerment actually mean for women with wealth?

Over her decades in the world of wealth management, Soumya began noticing a consistent blind spot—traditional financial systems weren’t designed with women’s realities in mind. Even wealth advisory firms, she found, were falling short. That led her to launch HERitage, a specialized arm within Waterfield, focused...

Electric two-wheeler maker, Ather Energy, listed on the bourses on earlier in May, but its IPO was subscribed just 1.4X—a modest showing for a company once seen as a premium EV pioneer. The lukewarm response reflected investor fatigue, sparked by Ola Electric’s volatile stock performance, the Blusmart funding controversy, and global supply chain headwinds. Despite a strong product portfolio and a reputation for in-house innovation, Ather faces an increasingly crowded market and mounting pressure to scale.

IPO proceeds will fund a new manufacturing plant in Maharashtra, expanded R&D, and marketing—moves aimed at boosting capaci...

Pyng, launched on 15 April, is quite a departure from Swiggy’s core food-focused business. The service marketplace, uncharted territory for Swiggy, is offering services of “verified professionals” (think therapists, chartered accountants, and even energy healers).

 No, it’s not a modified version of Urban Company. At least, not yet. For one, the latter offers standardised services comprising blue collar workers.

But why exactly is Swiggy, a company with a market capitalisation of over Rs 80,000 crore, diversifying its business?

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subsc...

The landscape is pretty bleak. In the race to produce more Ivy League-worthy students, Indian schools are selectively opting to teach IB. Teachers, in turn, find themselves shifting between the Cambridge and IB syllabi, often trying out things they aren’t trained for. Students and parents, meanwhile, are running in circles trying to find an able tutor after spending Rs 5–20 lakh on their child’s education. It helps no one that there are just a handful of dedicated, IB-trained teachers in the whole of India who can help students with the demanding curriculum.

Enter Sparkl Edventure.

...

When Rohan, a 35-year-old software engineer, signed up for a Rs 1 trial on a learning app called Seekho, he thought he had nothing to lose. He cancelled the subscription within weeks but money was still being deducted from his account months later. 

UPI Autopay, the rising star of India’s subscription economy is quietly letting apps to keep charging users long after they think they've cancelled.

From overlooked SMS alerts to sneaky terms hidden in fine print, we find out how widespread this problem really is and why so many users are only waking up to...

Nearly a decade ago, Hotstar, Netflix, and Amazon Prime entered the scene and positioned themselves as the anti-TV. No fixed showtimes. No endless ad breaks. No re-runs you had to sit through just because nothing else was on. For the first time, we were in control. TV became personal. It became on-demand. And best of all—it was ad-free. It felt like there was no going back.

But now something has shifted. Subscriber growth is stalling, and that’s making streaming platforms nervous. Really nervous. Their answer? Bring back ads. Amazon Prime Video is the latest to j...

Back in 2016, the Internet and Mobile Association of India set up an all new club for what was then a very small cohort of digital leaders in corporate India. It was called the all-India Chief Digital Officer club. 

Back then, there were only about five-six CDOs that were members. The point of the initiative was to give legitimacy to this new, emerging role. But soon enough, the initiative fizzled out. Not because the role didn’t take off or anything. Actually, the opposite. The initiative became redundant because the role became even more popular than they had ant...

For decades, the whole process of getting a loan approved was infamously painful and long winded. But now things have changed. Getting a loan is a whole lot faster than before. And that’s because of the disruptor to end all disruptors — artificial intelligence.

A bunch of companies have entered the scene with specalised AI tools to speed up different aspects of the loan-approval process.  In fact,  Indian AI startups have managed to raise nearly 750 million USD in 2024 and the banking and financial sector was one of the top drivers of this growth.

Now at first...

Family offices—the ultra-rich who used to hand over their money to VCs and wish them well—are now wondering why they ever bothered. Why did they pay someone to do what they could do themselves, on their terms?

Their primary gripe? The funds are not returning money. 

Of course, the so-called middlemen in this scenario aren't too pleased. After all, they are losing a substantial amount of business in the process. 

But it all boils down to one thing – who’s running the money. 

Tune in.

Daybreak is looking...

At first glance, things seem to be really looking up for India’s very own budget-friendly hotel chain Oyo. It’s had some pretty big wins in the last few months. 

So why then is its eventual IPO still the subject of such widespread speculation? 

The Ken's Deputy Editor Seetharaman G put it quite well in the latest edition of his newsletter on the Indian stock market, ‘Long and Short’. He said – ‘few companies are as good as Oyo Hotels at not going public’. 

Its listing has been a few years in the maki...

Just two days after the Pahalgam terror attack, alarm bells went off inside India’s financial system. A stern message from an HDFC Bank executive summed up the mood: “They may come for us now.”

The national security tragedy triggered a sudden and sweeping crackdown on India’s digital payments ecosystem. Behind closed doors in Delhi, top officials from the Finance Ministry, Home Affairs, and the Reserve Bank of India launched a coordinated push to track suspicious merchant activity online like gambling, betting, drug trafficking. The idea was to follow the money all the way to its possible...

Zara and Tata’s retail arm, Trent, have been partners for 15 years. But that relationship might be coming to an end because Zara’s not pulling its weight anymore. Its share of Trent’s overall sales has dropped from 28% to just 10% in six years. Its rivals like H&M and Uniqlo have moved faster, reached more cities in a much shorter time span.

Meanwhile, Trent’s been busy. It used what it learned from Zara and built something better. Zudio, its budget fashion brand, just hit $1 billion in sales in FY25. It’s fast, affordable, and everywhere. Now, Trent...

One clear sign that Angel One—India’s third-largest discount broker—is serious about reversing its fortunes is that it bought itself a front-row seat at India’s most expensive distraction: the Indian Premier League.

That’s ambitious. Especially for a company that just flunked its latest earnings test.

 Between fiscal year 2020 and 2024, Angel One proudly nuked its full-service past—no more phone calls, no more reports, no more advisers—and became a pure-play discount broker. Just an app, an order button, and some notifications. When the markets were roaring, that was enough.

But now, not qu...

In March this year, a software developer that goes by Pea Bee online published a blog rather ominously titled ‘Everyone knows all the apps on your phone’. 

He found that several Indian app-based startups are flouting rules of Google Play—Android’s app store—to access people’s data.  In particular, some apps use a workaround to scrutinise the names and usage patterns of other apps on people’s phones. In real time.

Now, the fact that apps have a lot of your data may not be a surprise to you. We’ve been pretty cavalier ab...

Physics Wallah’s brand new initiative, the PW Institute of Innovation, was pitched as an alternative to the tough IIT route that didn’t compromise on quality or career prospects. It even came with a scholarship, a residential campus in Bengaluru, and a shot at a good job after graduation. On paper, it looked like the perfect deal.

However, students who signed up had to juggle a confusing mix of courses, keep up with a changing curriculum, and struggle through administrative chaos. Even basic things like internships, placement support, and faculty consistency didn’t materialise the way th...

Eyestem, a 14-member biotech startup from Bengaluru is turning heads in global pharma circles. With just $10 million and a modest 1,200 sq ft office, it has developed a promising cell therapy for dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD)—a condition that leads to blindness and has no cure. Early trial results are not only encouraging, they’re outperforming billion-dollar competitors in the West.

But this isn’t just about scientific innovation. It’s about doing more with less. Eyestem’s founders set out with a bold goal: to build a cutting-edge treatment that’s actually affordable, especially for Indian patients. Th...