Top Stories This Week
Alex Chriss, CEO, PayPal
Digital wallet payments must flow beyond borders: PayPal CEO Alex Chriss: Countries like India have made rapid progress in digitising cash and expanding their digital wallet ecosystems, but the real growth in global commerce will come only when these country-specific systems become interoperable, said PayPal chief executive Alex Chriss.
Top six IT firms saw staff additions plunge 72% in Q1: Job additions at the top six IT majors stood at just 3,847 in April-June, a drop of almost 72% from 13,935 people who were hired by the six firms in the March quarter, the latest earnings statements showed.
End of the road for Good Glamm Group: lenders trigger asset breakup; brands up for sale individually: The Good Glamm Group will no longer continue as a unified entity after lenders enforced their charge on the company’s individual brands, leading to a brand-by-brand sale, founder Darpan Sanghvi said in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday.
Rare earths shortage hits Apple vendor Foxconn’s AirPods unit: Production of Apple AirPods has been hampered at Foxconn’s Telangana plant due to shortage of dysprosium, a direct result of China’s clampdown on the export of rare earth metals, said people aware of the matter.
Talent winning out at Indian gaming companies as focus shifts to high-end titles: As Indian gaming studios increasingly develop advanced intellectual properties with large budgets, the demand for specialised talent is rising sharply.India’s gaming industry has 50,000-60,000 open positions across fresher and experienced roles.
ETtech Explainer: CoinDCX cyberattack — What you need to know about the $44 million crypto hack: CoinDCX suffered a cyberattack on July 19, leading to the theft of digital assets worth around $44 million from one of its internal operational accounts. This is the second major crypto hack involving an Indian exchange within a year, following the high-profile WazirX breach in 2024.
Quick commerce firms chase brand ad dollars to boost revenue, margins: Quick commerce companies are ramping up pressure on brands and sellers to boost ad spending on the platforms, as they chase high-margin revenue streams to contain mounting losses. Zepto, Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart together command around 80-85% of the quick commerce market in terms of gross order value.
Fintech News
Madhusudan Ekambaram, cofounder and CEO, KreditBee
Kreditbee gets nod to become public entity: Consumer lending startup Kreditbee has secured approval from its board of directors to convert into a public limited company. It said its board had approved the said conversion on June 27 through a special resolution.
Setu strengthens top deck with senior execs from Razorpay, PhonePe, Wibmo: Fintech infrastructure company Setu, owned by digital payments major Pine Labs, has strengthened its leadership team with a series of senior appointments over the past two months.
Fewer use cases take toll on Fastag growth: Fastag, the modern electronic payment system for vehicle owners and the entire travel ecosystem, is stagnating, with almost negligible growth in the last financial year. Even the number of transactions and banks going live on the payment method remained sluggish during the year.
Earnings Corner
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh with CFO Jayesh Sanghrajka
Infosys profit surges 8.7% on deals, Europe show: Infosys recorded an 8.7% expansion in net profit at Rs 6,921 crore for the first quarter of FY26 on the back of a 7.5% increase in revenue at Rs 42,279 crore as second-largest software exporter surpassed peers, having snagged bigger deals and double-digit growth in Europe.
Eternal’s Q1 net profit falls 90%, revenue up 70% on Blinkit surge: Zomato and Blinkit parent Eternal reported a 90% year-on-year drop in its net profit for the April-June period, even as its operating revenue surged by 70% led by the rapid growth in its quick commerce business.
Paytm reports Rs 123 crore maiden net profit in Q1FY26: One 97 Communications, which operates fintech platform Paytm, reported a net profit of Rs 123 crore for the quarter ended June 2025 (Q1FY26), swinging from a loss of Rs 840 crore in the same period last year, as it cut costs and expanded its payments and merchant lending businesses.
Also Read: Kissht reports fall in FY25 revenue; net profit at Rs 160 crore
BigBasket turnover declines in FY25 amid rising quick commerce competition: According to Tata Sons’ annual report for FY25, BigBasket’s B2C unit Innovative Retail Concepts’ FY25 turnover fell 3% to Rs 7,673 crore, while its B2B unit Supermarket Grocery Supplies’s turnover fell 7% to Rs 2,227 crore during the year.
Tata 1mg posts 20% growth in FY25 turnover as it re-enters investment phase: Online pharmacy Tata 1mg reported 20% growth in its turnover for FY25 on a consolidated basis to Rs 2,392 crore. During the reporting period, its primary entity Tata 1mg Technologies reported revenue of Rs 375 crore with a threefold jump in profit after tax to Rs 65 crore.
Also Read: Coforge misses estimates, posts 138% YoY jump in Q1 profit; revenue surges 50%
IT Updates
Techies write to govt as TCS delays onboarding of 600 lateral hires: Technology professionals have written to the government against Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for alleged delay in onboarding 600 experienced lateral hires. Many of these professionals, with experience ranging from two to eighteen years, had already resigned from their previous roles and made personal and financial commitments based on the promised joining dates.
Also Read: Europe revival helps IT survive quarter shocks
US tariffs, big beautiful bill derail Indian IT’s big shift away from BFSI: India’s IT earnings are being dragged down by verticals such as manufacturing, consumer, communications and life sciences, which together constitute 40-70% revenues for several large companies.
Also Read: AI-assisted coding is the way to go when hiring graduates: LTIMindtree CEO
Startup Watch
PhysicsWallah founder Alakh Pandey
Sebi clears PhysicsWallah’s IPO plans: Edtech startup PhysicsWallah has received the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi) approval for an initial public offering. It proposes to raise Rs 4,000 crore in fresh capital at a valuation of Rs 35,000–40,000 crore.
Also Read: Elevation Capital sells Rs 226 crore worth shares in Ixigo parent
ED files Fema case against Myntra for Rs 1,654 crore FDI violation: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a complaint under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema), 1999, against Flipkart-owned fashion etailer Myntra for allegedly violating foreign investment rules to the tune of Rs 1,654.35 crore.
India’s SaaS sector tops $15 billion in revenue as IPO pipeline builds: India’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) sector crossed $15 billion in annual revenue in FY24, boosted by more than 36 companies topping $100 million in annualised recurring revenue (ARR), according to a report by financial services firm JM Financial.
Done Deals
Anil Thontepu and Neeraj Menta, founders, SuperK
Value retailer SuperK raises Rs 100 crore: SuperK, a value retail chain focussed on small towns of India, has raised Rs 100 crore in fresh capital from Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal’s 3State Ventures and CaratLane founder Mithun Sacheti. Cricketer Shubman Gill and existing backers Blume Ventures and Xeed Ventures have also joined the round.
Gupshup raises $60 million from Globespan, EvolutionX; explores domicile shift for India IPO: The fresh capital will be used to expand Gupshup’s artificial intelligence (AI)-driven messaging platform and accelerate go-to-market execution across high-growth regions, including India, the Middle East, South America and Africa.
Agentic AI startup Composio raises $25 million: The company’s cofounder and CEO, Soham Ganatra, told ET that the company will use the funds to expand its engineering and research team. The startup, based in San Francisco, with a development centre in Bengaluru, plans to increase its team size from 25 currently to 40 by the end of this year.
Tech and Policy
Days of building China factories, hiring workers in India are over: US President Donald Trump | Trump slammed US companies for hiring workers in India and setting up manufacturing in China. “Those days are over,” Trump warned, calling for companies to prioritise America’s interests.
UIDAI searches for more ways to curb Aadhaar, UID fraud: UIDAI, the central agency tasked with issuing Aadhaar, plans to impose curbs on frequent changes to birth dates and biometrics, verifying information directly with other official databases, and tapping frontier technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to weed out use of wrong photographs, and incorrect and mixed biometrics.
