Bluestone backers reap hefty rewards; Nykaa set for strong Q1 momentum

Hello,

Another day, another exit at Peak XV.

After over a decade at the firm, Pieter Kemps will leave the company and its seed-stage accelerator, Surge, adding to a long list of senior-level departures. 

Kemps, who started in Singapore with Peak and has been in the Netherlands since the pandemic, is stepping down to explore entrepreneurial opportunities in the European Union, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told YourStory.

Meanwhile, Rapido is looking to enter the bike and carpool lane with its new app, Hopr. More on that here.

ICYMI: India’s pursuit for better health gets a pharma upgrade.

In other news, Nvidia unveiled a set of new world AI models, libraries, and other infrastructure for robotics developers, most notable of which is Cosmos Reason—a 7-billion-parameter “reasoning” vision language model for physical AI applications and robots.

It also introduced Cosmos Transfer-2, which can accelerate synthetic data generation from 3D simulation scenes or spatial control inputs, and a distilled version of Cosmos Transfers.

Elsewhere, the operators of the Gravelines nuclear power plant are dealing with a swarm of jellyfish that have entered the water intake systems used to cool the coastal reactors of one of the largest nuclear power plants in France.

Just a reminder that nature can be mesmerising and deadly—all at the same time! 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Bluestone backers reap hefty rewards
• Nykaa set for strong Q1 momentum
• Fuelling India’s hardware revolution

Here’s your trivia for today: What object marks the ceremonial location of the South Pole?

IPO

Bluestone backers reap hefty rewards

Omnichannel retailer Bluestone’s IPO is expected to dole out massive gains to its venture investors, with Accel India and Saama Capital set to be the biggest beneficiaries after offloading sizeable stakes in the offer for sale (OFS).

Accel stands to make as much as Rs 134.6 crore at the higher end of the price band and about Rs 128.1 crore on the lower end, while Saama could rake in as much as Rs 201.8 crore to Rs 212 crore.

Trend shift:

• Accel India III (Mauritius) Ltd is set to offload 26.03 lakh shares acquired at the weighted average price of Rs 63.68 per share. Meanwhile, Saama Capital II Ltd plans to offload 41 lakh shares in the public offer, acquired at a much lower weighted average price of Rs 48.70 per share.
• Bluestone’s IPO was subscribed 39% on the first day of bidding on Monday, primarily led by strong traction from the qualified institutional buyers (QIB) category, with 57% of shares subscribed.
• The company set its initial public offering's pricing at Rs 492 to Rs 517 per share, according to the company's exchange filings.

Funding Alert

Startup: Truemeds

Amount: $85M

Round: Series C

Startup: Graas.ai

Amount: $9M

Round: Pre-Series B

Startup: FincFriends

Amount: Rs 41 Cr

Round: Debt

Beauty and Fashion

Nykaa set for strong Q1 momentum

Vertical marketplace Nykaa is expected to post strong year-on-year growth in both its beauty and fashion businesses in Q1 FY26, helped by healthy order volumes, customer acquisition momentum, and an expanding offline presence, according to brokerages and company disclosures.

Both JM Financial Institutional Securities and HDFC Securities expect mid-to-high 20s GMV growth in Nykaa’s beauty and personal care (BPC) segment for the reporting quarter.

Fundamentals growth:

• JMFISL estimated the core business BPC's GMV to rise about 26% YoY, helped by eB2B and Nykaa Man. 
• In contrast, HDFC projects about 27% YoY growth, supported by a 28.6% YoY rise in annual unique transacting customers and about 30% growth in order volumes.
• For fashion, HDFC sees about 25% GMV growth. Meanwhile, JMFISL saw improving traction in the core platform business and said the vertical could break even in FY26 as guided by management.

Interview

Fuelling India’s hardware revolution

Dassault Systèmes entered the Indian market in the late 90s and has engaged with the Indian startup ecosystem since 2014. While it supported 120 startups last year, the company has worked with over 100 such firms in just the first half of 2025. In total, it has helped 350 deeptech hardware companies.

The company now wants to go deeper within India’s hardware startup ecosystem with a two-pronged plan: by building relationships with educational universities to set up startup accelerators and incubators on campus, and looking at ways to tap into entrepreneurial talent in the Tier II and beyond locations.

News & updates

• EV bet: Ford will invest $2 billion to transform its Louisville Assembly Plant into a factory capable of making a new generation of affordable EVs, starting with a mid-sized pickup truck with a base price of $30,000 slated to launch in 2027. To reduce the cost of manufacturing, Ford has upended the moving assembly line system launched by its founder Henry Ford more than 112 years ago.
• Pay up: Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of revenue from sales to China of advanced computer chips, in an unusual move likely to faze American companies. The new levy could also hurt margins for the two companies, analysts warned. Shares of Nvidia and AMD fell about 1% and nearly 2%, respectively, in premarket trade on Monday.
• INR/USD: The RBI sold at least $5 billion worth of the US currency, across both onshore and offshore currency markets, this month to prop up the rupee as it weakened toward a record low, Bloomberg reported. If the trend persists, it could become RBI’s largest month of net dollar sales since January.

What object marks the ceremonial location of the South Pole?

Answer: A red and white striped pole, also known as a barber’s pole, topped with a reflective sphere. The ceremonial pole is surrounded by the flags of the original 12 countries that signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959.   

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