Inside Namma Yatri’s infra play; How LxmePay helps women spend mindfully

Hello,

Nobody perhaps had a better Dhanteras than IndiGo.

The airline sealed a firm order for 30 Airbus A350 aircraft, taking the total order for widebody jets to 60. This comes as IndiGo prepares to compete in the international long-haul segment—a space dominated so far by Air India.

Meanwhile, not everyone’s impressed by the massive gold rush. Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has urged restraint, calling gold a safeguard against financial uncertainty rather than a profit-generating investment. “Finance ultimately depends on trust,” Vembu wrote on X.

Elsewhere, AI is forcing the Indian IT services industry to act fast. IT giant TCS will retrain about 1,00,000 employees each year as it shifts away from traditional operation models.

But what happens when AI meets cooking? A IIIT-Delhi professor is working on a new field of ‘computational gastronomy’, blending the artistic, cultural side of cooking and the quantitative precision of data science. 

Speaking of food, this Diwali, there's a trend of savouring unique sweets that one may not find that easily. From Nokul Dana and Rajasthani Malpua to Varadh Vara and Bohri sweets, these sweets are served at homes across India.

What’s your favourite Diwali sweet?

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Inside Namma Yatri’s infra play
• How LxmePay helps women spend mindfully
• FlowerAura’s Rs 100-Cr gifting business

Here’s your trivia for today: Diwali commemorates the spiritual enlightenment of which two saints?

Interview

Inside Namma Yatri’s infra play

Namma Yatri is now also focusing on its infrastructure play. Built on the ONDC platform, it is utilising its infrastructure prowess to collaborate with governments to launch apps that will integrate all modes of transport onto a single platform.

“Our idea is to give a rock-solid, high-performance, affordable infrastructure and services for hyper-local communities and governments to learn from the service. So essentially, it has become a house of brands, which are all unified using a common protocol, like ONDC, etc,” Co-founder and COO at Namma Yatri, Shanmugavel Mani Subbiah (Shan M S) told YourStory.

Seamless transit:

• For Namma Transit, a personal transit assistant, the company has completed over 60,000–70,000 transactions so far. Chennai’s system is more integrated, covering buses and local trains. 
• “There are two ways to grow—throw money at it or leverage people’s power. We’ve chosen the latter... Instead of heavy discounts or big marketing spends, we focus on building with the community and government,” says Shan M S.
• “As of August this year, our 12-month revenue run rate has tripled compared to last year. In our two main states, we’re operationally profitable—covering tech, infrastructure, operations, and marketing—though central admin costs aren’t included yet,” he adds.

Finance

How LxmePay helps women spend mindfully

Last week, Lxme—a Mumbai-based financial platform for women—launched LxmePay, India’s first Unified Payments Interface (UPI) built exclusively for women. 

More than just a payment tool, LxmePay aims to turn everyday transactions into opportunities for financial growth and smarter money management for women.

Women first:

• Unlike conventional UPI platforms, every transaction on LxmePay earns users digital gold, helping them build long-term value rather than fleeting cashbacks. Even receiving money from another LxmePay user contributes to this growing wealth.
• "For example, you will see a feature called Vision Board on the app—a very non-intuitive way to look at a finance app—but a very intuitive way of getting women to start thinking about converting their goals and dreams to a financial goal," says co-founder Prithi Rathi Gupta.
• From our perspective, we have divided the world of women into two parts. First, for women already using UPI payments, we've built this entire value proposition. Second, for women who are still using a bank correspondent network or a bank account but don't use a UPI payment,” she adds. 

SMB

FlowerAura’s Rs 100-Cr gifting business

For the first five years, FlowerAura delivered only flowers before expanding to other categories. What began as a simple flower delivery platform for users in Delhi-NCR has today evolved into a full-fledged pan-India gifting platform featuring hampers, cakes, and plants. 

The company now delivers to over 17,000 pin codes across 700 cities and 30 international markets. In FY2024, the venture clocked a revenue close to Rs 100 crore, recording a 15% year-on-year growth. 

News & updates

• Family business: The mother and two sisters of Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee plan to sell some 1.73 trillion won ($1.22 billion) worth of shares in the South Korean tech firm, the company said in a regulatory filing. The purpose of the sale of 17.7 million shares, or a 0.3% stake in Samsung Electronics, is to cover tax payments and loan repayment.
• Vroom vroom: The boss of Lamborghini has said its customers still want "the sound and the emotion" of internal combustion engines, and the company will use them in its cars for at least the next decade. Chief executive Stephan Winkelmann said enthusiasm for electric cars was declining, creating an opportunity to focus on hybrid power instead.
• AI race: Nvidia unveiled the first US-made Blackwell wafer, produced at TSMC’s semiconductor manufacturing facility in Phoenix, as demand for AI chips accelerates. TSMC's Arizona facility will produce advanced technologies, including two-, three- and four-nanometer chips, as well as A16 chips.

Diwali commemorates the spiritual enlightenment of which two saints?

Answer: Lord Vardhman Mahavira and Swami Dayanand Saraswati

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