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Mobikwik’s business thrives on earning interest, but in Q2, it was the one paying. The fintech major’s quarterly loss widened nearly eightfold to Rs 28.62 crore in the September quarter, as the company’s exit from short-term loans sent revenue tumbling—especially in its financial services segment, where it plummeted 52% to Rs 61.3 crore from Rs 127.1 crore. Still, it struck a hopeful note in its earnings call, noting a gradual decrease in EBITDA losses and improving unit economics, among other things. In fact, steady recovery was a persistent note across the call, from its payment gateway offering to its lending business. Meanwhile, Paytm’s gaming unit also ended up costing the company a pretty penny, with a 190 crore impairment charge tied to the joint venture dragging down profits for the quarter. For Bluestone, on the other hand, this festive season proved auspicious, with a 37% YoY rise in operating revenue in the September quarter as it managed to rein in its losses. Lenskart’s IPO, too, finished strong, with the total issue being oversubscribed 28x as of 5 pm on the final day, led by qualified institutional buyers. Lastly, the countdown to the most-anticipated startup-tech summit of the year is nearly up. Don’t miss out on the chance to mingle with the nation’s top entrepreneurs and investors at TechSparks 2025. See you there soon! In today’s newsletter, we will talk about Groww IPO draws heavy retail demand Inside Scapia’s full-stack offerings Transforming women’s health in India Here’s your trivia for today: What food did Ancient Egyptians use as a wound disinfectant? Groww IPO draws heavy retail demand The IPO of Billionbrains Garage Ventures, the parent company behind the Groww investing platform, closed its first day of bidding with strong interest from retail investors, while institutional participation stayed weak. Total subscription stood at 0.51 times against 364.77 million shares on offer. Retail individual investors drove the bulk of the demand, subscribing to their quota around 1.76 times. Retail bids have consistently outpaced every other category, underscoring retail enthusiasm for consumer-facing fintech plays. Key takeaways: Non-institutional investors subscribed 0.48 times, aided by applicants in the Rs 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh segment, which came in at 0.83 times. High-value bids above Rs 10 lakh remained lighter at 0.30 times. Qualified institutional buyers barely showed up, subscribing just 0.10 times. Large investors usually wait until the final day. Groww locked in heavy support from global and domestic institutions through the anchor book, allocating 298.45 million shares at Rs 100 apiece, raising Rs 2,985 crore ahead of the offering. Funding Alert Startup: Zynk Amount: $5M Round: Seed Startup: TABP Snacks and Beverages Amount: $3M Round: Undisclosed Startup: Protouch Amount: $2M Round: Pre-Series A Inside Scapia’s full-stack offerings Travel-focused credit card platform Scapia launched a new card offering and is evolving into a full-stack travel commerce platform, driven by the insight that travellers spend nearly as much on shopping and experiences—both before and during trips—as they do on flights and hotels. “Generally, when people think of travel, they just think of how to get there and where to stay,” CEO Anil Goteti told YourStory. “But actually, if you look at consumption in India, about 50% of the travel spend happens on all the modes of transport and where they stay. But 50% of the spend actually happens when people are at their destination.” New pastures: It is foraying into three new verticals around its Federal Bank co-branded card ecosystem: an independent add-on card system, an AI-curated experiences marketplace, and a dedicated travel ecommerce store. Scapia Experiences addresses what Goteti calls “decision fatigue” in activity booking. The platform launches with over 5,000 curated global experiences and uses AI to consolidate fragmented listings into digestible options. The most ambitious launch is the Scapia Store, a travel-specific ecommerce platform built entirely in-house by Scapia’s 70-person engineering team. Transforming women’s health in India Healthcare has to be gender-specific, focused and intelligent, says Preetha Reddy, Executive Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Group, one of the largest healthcare chains in the country. “It’s really not one-size-fits-all,” Reddy says in an interview with HerStory. India—which is at the forefront of healthcare globally—has to show this aspect to the rest of the world, she adds. Working closely with over 9,000 clinicians, she has undertaken initiatives to enhance clinical outcomes, strengthen quality processes, and ensure the highest standards of patient satisfaction. News & updates Reject: Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management, said it will vote against Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar pay package at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting this week, rebelling against management guidance and threats from Musk to step down if the deal is rejected. Cloud: Amazon’s $38 billion cloud deal with OpenAI marks a major endorsement for the ecommerce giant's cloud business after recent setbacks, including ceding market share to rivals and an outage that disrupted large parts of the internet. Clampdown: Canada’s clampdown on international students has hit applicants from India particularly hard. Canada lowered the number of international student permits it issues for the second year in a row in early 2025 as part of a broader effort to reduce the number of temporary migrants and address fraud related to student visas. What food did Ancient Egyptians use as a wound disinfectant? Answer: Moldy bread We would love to hear from you! To let us know what you liked and disliked about our newsletter, please mail nslfeedback@yourstory.com. If you don’t already get this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here. For past editions of the YourStory Buzz, you can check our Daily Capsule page here.
