The public markets are bleeding. Foreign investors have pulled out ₹2 lakh crore. The Nifty has fallen 14%. Yet the IPO pipeline is bursting with over 75 companies waiting to list. In this divergence lies a strategy that the wealthiest investors have already figured out: stop buying what everyone can see. Start buying what comes next.
Mistral has become Europe's most prominent AI startup, attracting billions in valuation and symbolizing the continent's ambition to build its own AI champion rather than rely on foreign technology giants.
Chainguard's rise reflects growing investor belief that cybersecurity could become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom as organizations race to secure increasingly complex software systems.
PsiQuantum's rise reflects growing investor belief that quantum computing could become the next major technological platform, with implications extending far beyond artificial intelligence.
Blackstone-backed AirTrunk has pledged $30 billion and 5GW of AI-ready data-centre capacity in India by 2030 — the single largest private digital infrastructure commitment in the country’s history. We unpack what it means for India’s AI decade.
Kusha Kapila launched her shapewear brand Underneat in April 2025. Within eight months, it clocked ₹150 crore in annual recurring revenue, turned EBITDA positive, and raised $6 million in pre‑Series A funding. She is not alone. From Rhea Chakraborty building a ₹40 crore clothing empire to Parul Gulati expanding from hair extensions to a Goa hostel, Indian content creators are leading a quiet D2C revolution. This article tracks how influencers are using their parasocial capital to build real businesses, the economics of creator-led brands, and why venture capitalists are now hunting for creators, not just founders.
India's D2C sector is entering a new phase where profitability, retention and operational discipline matter more than growth at any cost. Investors are rewarding fundamentals over hype.
In an ecosystem that measures success in valuation milestones and funding rounds, Gynoveda's Rachana Gupta offers a different definition — one measured in lives changed and health restored. Her story reveals something that the startup world often forgets: impact and excellence are not opposites. They are often the same thing.
For the first time in India's startup history, women-led ventures are attracting capital not as a social good investment but as a hard commercial bet. Behind this shift is accumulating evidence that the market has been systematically mispricing the best female-led opportunities — and sophisticated investors are now correcting that mispricing.
After a record-breaking 2025 for startup listings, 24 Indian startups have filed DRHPs with SEBI while 26 more finalize plans for 2026. But the class of 2026 is different from what came before — shaped by markets that have learned hard lessons about the difference between growth stories and business fundamentals.