Private equity is reshaping India’s schools. A relaxed New Education Policy and rising demand for international curricula have opened the doors for global operators to buy up chains across the country.
The promise is scale, better infrastructure, and tighter governance. But the reality looks a little different—lean budgets, shrinking salary hikes, and a growing focus on cost-cutting. And the fallout? Increasing staff attrition, decreasing academic quality, and schools trading their founder-led ethos for a standardised model.
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*Disclosure: The writer comes from a family that previously owned a school acquired partially by International Schools Partnership (ISP)
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India’s largest stockbroker, Groww, is chasing an ambitious IPO. But behind the headlines, its core broking business is under stress. Its clients are leaving, regulations are squeezing revenues, and profits are wobbling.
To keep its $7–8 billion valuation intact, Groww is making big moves. It's acquiring loss-making wealth-tech startup Fisdom for $150 million and launching “W,” a new unit for the rich.
Wealth management is the trend everyone wants in on, but can Groww really pull it off? Or is this just optics ahead of the IPO?
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
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Most SaaS companies have accepted the “cloud and AI tax” , the cost they pay to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft for storage and processing data. But Zoho is refusing to play along. Famous for its frugality, Zoho is now building its own AI models and data centers to keep costs down for the small and medium enterprises that make up most of its clientele.
While rivals lean heavily on third-party clouds, Zoho has bet on a homegrown LLM—Zia—to power its products and stay affordable. But the strategy comes with risks, because building AI from scratch demands huge capital and relentless innovation.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
Urban Company’s IPO is off to a roaring start. Retail investors snapped up shares within an hour of the issue opening. By the second day, demand was more than five times the supply, and in the grey market, the stock was already trading nearly Rs.40 above its official price band. The company has reported its first-ever annual profit, rolled out new services like Insta Help and Revamp, and is raising nearly Rs.1900 crore to fuel its next phase of growth.
On paper, it’s a remarkable turnaround story.
But there’s another side you won’t find in most headlines. Urban Company has built its business on the backs of gig workers. A majority of them are women who have been asking for things as basic as employment benefits, fair policies, and a share in the company’s success.
In this special episode, we revisit host Snigdha Sharma's earlier conversation with two such workers whose voices cut through the numbers.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
Physics Wallah has filed for a ₹3,820 crore IPO earlier this week making it India’s first edtech unicorn to go public. Founded by Alakh Pandey, the YouTube tutor turned entrepreneur, PW disrupted test prep with free videos and low-cost courses. It scaled into a unicorn with offline centres, AI tools, and millions of loyal students.
But as it steps into the public markets, Pandey’s cult-like persona, the company’s biggest strength, may also be its biggest risk.
Can a business built around one man survive investor scrutiny?
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
With ties to the US and China on shaky ground, India is leaning on a new partner—the UAE. The economic relationship has surged past $100 billion in FY25, and this surge has resulted in Indian companies from Tata to Omega Seiki Mobility setting up shop in the Emirates’ tax-free zones.
Attractive incentives like access to capital, world-class infrastructure, and geographical centrality are attracting Indian manufacturers abroad. But this raises a big question: is the UAE a launchpad for India’s global ambitions—or a risk to it’s own manufacturing dreams?
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
The Online Gaming Bill 2025 has wiped out India’s real-money gaming industry overnight. But the ripple effects extend far beyond fantasy cricket and poker tables.
For years, payment aggregators like Razorpay, PhonePe, Cashfree, and PayU quietly powered the industry’s explosive growth. They processed deposits, payouts, and billions of rupees in prize transfers every month. Real-money gaming wasn’t just another client vertical. It was their golden goose that delivered high margins in a hyper-competitive market.
Now, with the ban in place, these fintechs face a sudden revenue void. For some, gaming accounted for as much as 30% of net revenues. The loss comes just as many are prepping for IPOs, making the timing even more brutal.
So, what does the gaming ban really mean for India’s payments industry?
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
Giva is shaking up India’s jewellery market, long dominated by gold, with an unexpected bet on silver. Founded in 2019, the company has already grown into a $2 billion brand by targeting the massive but largely unorganized silver jewellery segment.
Unlike competitors such as Caratlane and Bluestone that built their businesses around gold and diamonds, Giva has leaned on an “affordable luxury” play—high-margin silver products, agile design cycles, and impulse-friendly purchases.
But challenges loom. Rising silver prices could cut into margins, and its aggressive offline push will test whether silver can truly rival gold in a market steeped in tradition.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
India is rolling out the biggest reform to its Goods and Services Tax since 2017. The GST Council has approved a new structure that takes effect on September 22. It will reshape how everything from household essentials to cars, insurance, and services are taxed.
The government says GST 2.0 will simplify compliance and lower costs, but several states warn of heavy revenue losses and economists question the design. Markets have already responded with key sectors moving sharply.
In this episode we go over what changes, who benefits, who loses, and whether GST 2.0 can deliver on the promise of a simpler tax system.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
Harshjit Sethi, managing director at Peak XV and the firm’s AI investment lead, has resigned, marking yet another senior exit. His departure follows the exits of longtime partners Shailesh Lakhani and Abheek Anand, raising fresh questions about India’s largest venture-capital firm.
And the timing is striking: Peak XV is also on the verge of its biggest payday yet, with upcoming IPOs from Groww, Pine Labs, and Meesho that could deliver billions.
In this episode, we look at the paradox of Peak XV’s best year colliding with its worst, and what it means for its global ambitions.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
A severe shortage of seats and difficult tests result in about 25,000 Indians flying abroad to get a medical degree. The problems begin afresh when they return. Instead of warm welcomes, graduates are met with screening tests with high failure rates, tedious registration procedures and even unpaid internships.
But, the thing is: India needs these doctors, and badly.
For every 1260 people, we have only 1 doctor–a stark departure from the WHO recommended 1:1000 ratio. However, bureaucratic mazes and a lack of infrastructural support put these young doctors in a difficult position.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
When Peyush Bansal spent more than Rs 200 crore to buy back Lenskart shares from investors at a deep discount, it wasn’t just a bold trade. It was a rare move few founders manage. He essentially clawed back equity before heading into an IPO.
And this extra stake pushed him into “promoter” status, a role many startup leaders once avoided but are now racing to embrace.
Why the sudden shift? What does it reveal about founders, investors, and regulators in India’s IPO boom?
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
From the very public Ambani family feud to the private struggles of the Raymond family, the transfer of wealth and power has often been messy. With over 850,000 millionaires in India, and many of them looking to transition their wealth in the next decade, there's a growing, yet largely unaddressed market for a specific type of expert: the succession coach.
Part mediator, part therapist, part strategist—they do more than just advise. They keep dynasties from tearing themselves apart.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
On August 27, 2025, U.S. tariffs on Indian exports doubled to 50%, slamming nearly $60 billion worth of goods from textiles and gems to furniture and leather. Industry groups warn shipments to America could plunge by more than 40%, with job losses running into the hundreds of thousands. But behind the headlines lies a deeper story.
For decades, Indian exporters leaned on the predictability of the U.S. market. But it was a comfort trap that left them dangerously exposed. Now, that comfort has snapped. Factories are idling, the rupee is weakening, and growth forecasts are being cut.
And yet, this shock could also be the push India needs to diversify and build resilience into its export ecosystem. Can a crisis this severe become the catalyst for transformation?
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More on Trump's tariffs:
1. US consumers may not notice the ‘Made in India’ tag, but after Trump's tariffs, their wallets will
2. Biden said 'please' till 2024. Trump's saying 'penalty' in 2025
Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
Back in 2017, Google published the research that sparked the entire generative AI boom. But when OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, Google was caught off guard.
Fast forward to 2025, and Google’s own AI, Gemini, is no longer a rushed response. It’s a full-grown product, one the company is pushing hard by bundling it with Workspace and Google Cloud. In India, that strategy is already visible. Enterprises are adopting Gemini for everything from customer service to search to creative media.
But here’s the twist: India’s cloud market is big on adoption but light on innovation, which means price matters. And Google is betting Gemini will give it the edge.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
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 about our data for some time now. Remember Digi Yatra?
But the scary thing is that Indian companies are equally nonchalant about the user data they collect. The result? Data-security breaches have been on the rise.
So what is a data conscious Indian customer to do?
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*This episode was originally published on May 13 2025.
Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
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Even though GLP-1 drugs have helped nearly 20 million people shed weight across the world since 2021, Indians had to wait until 2025 to get in on the action legally.
To be fair, the country wasn’t entirely in the dark. Semaglutide—the molecule behind pharma giant Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy—was already available for diabetes treatment. But this March, Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro (which uses a different molecule, tirzepatide) entered the market. In July, Wegovy arrived. And suddenly, India went from “we know GLP-1” to “we want the skinny shot”.
Since then, the GLP-1 market in India—across diabetes and weight loss—has grown from Rs 531 crore to Rs 628 crore. And now, depending on the vantage point, things are about to get much bigger. And much cheaper.
And naturally, pretty much every major Pharma major wants in on the action.
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Lenskart is gearing up for a nearly $1 billion IPO after closing FY25 on a strong note with ₹6,652 crore in revenue and ₹297 crore in profit. What’s even more impressive is that almost 40% of that revenue now comes from its more than 600 stores outside India, rare feat for an Indian consumer brand.
Unlike peers such as Zomato and Ola that stumbled in global markets, Lenskart has taken a slow-and-steady approach, leaning on selective acquisitions, smart investments, and joint ventures to expand abroad.
At the heart of its success is a vertically integrated supply chain that gives the company pricing power, agility in launching new products, and the ability to deliver consistent quality no matter the geography.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
The Online Gaming Bill, 2025 has sent shockwaves through India’s booming fantasy sports industry. Within hours of its passage in the Parliament on Wednesday, Dream11, the country’s first fantasy sports unicorn with over 200 million users, found itself on the chopping block. Smrita Singh Chandra, a former VP at Dream11, called the ban on real-money online games 'deeply unjust' and 'unethical,' warning of devastating economic fallout.
At stake is the fantasy sports industry valued at nearly $2 billion and projected to hit $5 billion by 2030. But the government isn’t just worried about gaming addiction. It cited money laundering, tax evasion, and even national security risks.
In this episode, host Snigdha Sharma unpacks the storm around Dream11: how the platform works, why Indian courts have long defended it as a 'game of skill,' and why critics and now the government, insist it is actually just gambling in disguise.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
OpenAI has just launched a special, India-only plan for ChatGPT. It makes access cheaper here than almost anywhere else in the world. At first, it looks like a win for millions of Indians who’ll get to try cutting-edge AI at a fraction of the cost.
But for India’s AI startups, it may be a different story. Competing with global giants that have billions in capital, access to compute, and a head start on scale is already tough. Add aggressive pricing, and the playing field gets even steeper. After all, if Indians aren’t paying with money, they’re likely paying with something else: data and usage.
So where does that leave Indian AI? Can startups like Sarvam, Krutrim, and others still carve out a niche through language, verticals, or local trust or will they be reduced to distributors for the biggies?
Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
