Peak XV plans moves ahead of new fund; Building for India 2030

Hello,

There are a lot of stops on the road to an IPO.

SEBI has given the green signal for PhysicsWallah to proceed with its IPO. The market regulator gave its observations to the edtech unicorn over its confidential draft red herring prospectus, starting the 18-month clock for the company to launch its Rs 4,600-crore IPO.

Shadowfax Technologies is also in a prep mode. The logistics provider has appointed three new members to its board ahead of its public debut. Earlier this month, the company filed an IPO through a confidential pre-filing route, intending to raise Rs 2,000-2,500 crore.

In other news, Amazon and Flipkart, as well as D2C brands, witnessed a marked increase in order volumes during multiple sales held last week. The sale period from July 11 to 14 saw a 19% year-on-year increase in ecommerce order volumes, according to Unicommerce.

However, not all sales may have happened through free will. Many platforms employ dark patterns to influence consumers into making choices that are not in their best interest.

The Central Consumer Protection Authority has advised ecommerce platforms to self-audit and eliminate dark patterns, after many disgruntled users online shared alleged malpractice on some quick commerce apps.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Peak XV may pare stake in K12 Techno
• Building for India 2030
• Disrupting beauty booking

Here’s your trivia for today: What was India’s first Urdu newspaper and when was it established?

Venture capital

Peak XV may pare stake in K12 Techno

Venture capital firm Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) may reduce its stake in K12 Techno, which runs Orchids International School, by 50% ahead of the launch of its new fund, reportedly worth over a billion dollars, people familiar with the matter told YourStory. 

The VC firm currently owns approximately 22% of K12 Techno, split nearly equally between two funds—Peak XV Partners Investments V and Peak XV Partners Growth Investments IV.

Key takeaways:

• Although Peak XV hasn’t actively sought buyers, the firm is receiving inbound interest as private equity firms explore opportunities in the traditional schools sector, they added.
• According to a valuation report filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in March this year, K12 Techno Services had an equity value of Rs 4,714 crore and was expecting a turnover of Rs 500 crore for the current financial year (FY26) with a net profit of almost Rs 72 crore.
• Since 2023, Peak XV has been actively offloading shares in K12 Techno, initially to Kedaara Capital and later to Kenro Capital.

Funding Alert

Startup: Netrasemi

Amount: Rs 107 Cr

Round: Series A

Startup: SuperK

Amount: Rs 100 Cr

Round: Series B

Startup: Enlite

Amount: Rs 46 Cr

Round: Series A

TechSparks

Building for India 2030

As India lays the foundation for a $10-trillion economy by 2030 with a digital-first, innovation-driven approach, the upcoming edition of TechSparks—YourStory’s flagship tech-startup conference—will focus on AI and examine its far-reaching potential. According to a report by EY, India’s AI revolution is poised to add $1.5 trillion to the country’s GDP by 2030, creating millions of new-age jobs across agritech, spacetech, healthtech, and manufacturing.  

TechSparks 2025, titled India 2030: Powered by AI, from November 6 to 8, will bring together ecosystem leaders to explore all this and more.

Innovation:

• India’s deeptech sector added over 480 startups in 2023, twice the previous year’s count, according to a report by Nasscom and Zinnov. The report also says that the sector experienced a 78% surge in funding in 2024. 
• India’s most transformative companies are emerging and will continue to emerge from the deeptech space, says Manish Gupta, General Partner, growX ventures.
• Meanwhile, in the world of healthcare, AI is streamlining administrative processes and improving clinical decision-making. Around 76% of Indian healthcare professionals believe that AI can help improve outcomes for patients, reveals Philips Future Health Index 2025.

Startup

Disrupting beauty booking

Launched in early 2025, Style Lounge was built to address structural inefficiencies in India’s beauty and wellness sector through a digital-first approach. The platform operates via a dual-app model—one designed for consumers and another for salon partners. 

In just three months of operations, the app has surpassed 25,000 downloads on both Android and iOS, with over 14,000 active users and 1,000 salons onboarded across the Delhi-NCR region.

News & updates

• Trade pact: Britain and India signed a free trade agreement on Thursday during a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sealing a deal to cut tariffs on goods from textiles to whisky and cars and allow more market access for businesses.
• Entertainment: Growing use of AI in advertising is expected to boost the global entertainment and media industry’s revenue to $3.5 trillion by 2029, according to PwC. The industry is projected to record a compound annual growth rate of 3.7% until 2029, the consulting firm said in its Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2025-29 on Thursday. 
• Cheaper Tesla: Carmaker Tesla has said it will build cheaper cars and win approval for its self-driving software in Europe this year after seeing sales fall at the sharpest rate in at least a decade. The company told investors it had started “first builds of a more affordable model in June” while posting a slump in car deliveries and shrinking profits.

What was India’s first Urdu newspaper and when was it established?

Answer: Jam-i-Jahan-Numa was established in March 1822 in Kolkata by Harihar Datta. It eventually became an exclusively Persian-language newspaper.

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