Dear Reader,
Shiprocket expands into the food commerce market.
The company’s AI-native commerce platform fastrr has partnered with Vegorama Group, which operates Punjabi Angithi, and Bikkgane Biryani, to help the restaurant brands manage direct orders, customer engagement, and hyperlocal deliveries.
In recent times, restaurants have been exploring ways to drive orders through their own digital channels instead of relying solely on third-party food aggregators. Direct channels give restaurants greater access to customer data and more opportunities to engage with diners after a purchase.
Meanwhile, Bengaluru-based digital trust company eMudhra has decided to exit its global website security certificate business, following a security incident involving weak cryptographic keys that prompted action from Google and Mozilla.
In a regulatory filing on Thursday, the company said its board had decided to voluntarily withdraw from the business, citing rising compliance costs, increasing data sovereignty requirements and diminishing commercial returns.
In other news, rural healthcare platform CureBay has raised Rs 100 crore in a pre-Series C funding round led by IvyCap Ventures. The round comprises Rs 69 crore in equity from IvyCap Ventures and existing investors, and more than Rs 30 crore in debt from Trifecta Capital, Alteria Capital, and VentureSoul Partners.
CureBay will use the funds to expand its operations across India, strengthen its healthcare delivery network, and develop its technology and AI capabilities.
Amid increasing AI threats, here’s a new one.
Major US banks have detected AI agents lurking inside customer accounts. Some of these unauthorised third-party agents are even attempting to act independently, Axios reported. Banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo are working to curb these risks.
Lastly, what’s PHP and why did companies worldwide scramble to fix flaws in the programming language used to build websites? Here’s the lowdown.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Swiggy’s Q2: Net loss drops nearly 16%, revenue rises 36%
- What sells? The celebrity or the product?
Here’s your trivia for today: Who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature? (Scroll down for the answer)
Earnings
Swiggy’s Q2 net loss drops nearly 16%, revenue rises 36%
Food and grocery delivery platform Swiggy narrowed its net loss by 15.6% year on year (YoY) in the second quarter of FY27. Its revenue rose 36% during the same period.
The company reported a loss of Rs 922 crore in Q2 of FY27, compared with a loss of Rs 1,092 crore in the same period a year ago. Revenue for the quarter was Rs 7,571 crore, up from Rs 5,561 crore a year ago.
Key takeaways
- Losses at Instamart, Swiggy's quick commerce business, widened to Rs 764 crore, compared with Rs 739 crore a year ago, thus impacting the overall numbers of the company. Instamart’s revenue for the second quarter was Rs 1,306 crore, up from Rs 980 crore in the corresponding year-ago period.
- The gross order value of the food delivery business grew 17.7% YoY to touch Rs 10,054 crore for the second quarter. The adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was Rs 341 crore, an improvement of Rs 101 crore over the last one year.
- In comparison, Swiggy’s rival Eternal reported a 92% rise in net profit at Rs 125 crore, while revenue grew 78% to Rs 24,138 crore in the second quarter of FY27.
TechSparks
Celebrities don’t sell, the product does: Ananth Narayanan
The froth has gone out of D2C, and brands that want to last will have to play the patient game. This was the key message from Ananth Narayanan, Founder and CEO of BRND.ME, at the 17th edition of YourStory’s TechSparks event.
In a fireside chat with Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory and The Bharat Project, Narayanan said, without product-market fit, merely scaling, which a lot of D2C brands used to do, is not valued anymore. “You need real cash flows, you need real product love, which is very hard,” he said.
Key takeaways
- A celebrity may add recall to a brand, but it’s the product that sells, said Narayanan. “A face can give you initial momentum, but I don’t think it can get you repeat consumers.”
- He advised founders to build with heart. “Build products that you love. Otherwise you are becoming a bit of a machine that churns out unit economics.”
- On India as a brand, Narayanan said the country stands for talent and should now move on to culture, from yoga and Ayurveda to mindfulness. “Why can’t we make the Indian way of living the most important thing in the digital age?”
<Funding Alert>
Startup: Chapter Home
Amount: Rs 63 Cr
Round: Equity & Debt
Startup: TravClan
Amount: $5M
Round: Undisclosed
News & updates
- PHP patch: Companies and governments worldwide rushed on Thursday to patch critical flaws in the widely used PHP programming language, as a cybersecurity company reported millions of hacking attempts after the vulnerabilities were disclosed. This came after governments in Europe and elsewhere took websites offline as a precaution on Wednesday while website operators scrambled to secure systems running the software.
- Nasdaq slide: The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid more than 1% on Thursday as growth stocks weakened after earnings from mega-caps Tesla and Meta failed to allay AI-related concerns, with a recovery in oil prices further adding to market unease, Reuters reported.
- Job cuts: Barclays is cutting around 5,000 jobs or 5% of its workforce this year, as it uses technology such as AI to slash fixed costs and improve returns. The job cuts were revealed as Barclays reported a third-quarter profit of £2.3 billion ($3.08 billion), up 12% from a year ago but undershooting analysts’ forecasts as its fixed income trading business underperformed.
Who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature?
Answer: Bob Dylan
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