Groww stock rally makes a new billionaire; The case of BYJU’S Alpha’s missing $533M

Hello,

The lasting effects of US tariffs are rearing up, this time in trade deficit numbers.

India’s trade deficit widened to a record high last month, due to a rise in gold imports and a fall in US-bound exports during the second consecutive month of steep tariffs on Indian goods. 

The levies have hit labour-intensive sectors, including textiles, leather, footwear, and gems and jewellery, the hardest. While the RBI announced relief measures for exporters last week, including collateral-free loans and other programmes, bankers hold that this may pressure the rupee and delay bringing back foreign earnings.

For the time being, farmers can breathe easy, as Indian agricultural exporters are set to benefit from US exemptions of dozens of food items from the reciprocal tariffs regime—which some analysts say could help to revive lost demand.

Meanwhile, as the government courts a trade deal with the US to alleviate the crippling tariffs placed on it, India’s state-run refiners have signed their first long-term deal with the US to import 2.2 million tons of LPG next year.

That’s roughly equal to 10% of the country’s imports!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Groww stock rally makes a new billionaire
• The case of BYJU’S Alpha’s missing $533M
• Inside MakeMyTrip’s AI playbook

Here’s your trivia for today: What common office supply item is named for the Asian “abaca” fibre used to make them?

Fintech

Groww stock rally makes a new billionaire

Shares of Billionbrains Garage Ventures, the parent of stockbroking platform Groww, rose for the fourth straight session on Monday, hitting a fresh high of 20% upper circuit on the NSE.

The rally has also minted a new billionaire. Lalit Keshre, Co-founder and CEO of Groww—who holds 55.91 crore shares or 9.06% of the company—now sits on a stake worth roughly Rs 9,448 crore, placing him comfortably around the $1.1 billion mark at current prices.

Euphoria:

• The rally has now pushed the company’s valuation to Rs 1,07,895.95 crore (about $12 billion), turning Groww into one of India’s most valuable listed fintechs practically overnight.
• The latest spike in Groww’s share prices builds on last Thursday’s early-session burst of optimism, when the fintech company’s shares briefly pushed past Rs 150, nudging it over the $10 billion mark for the first time.
• Groww’s IPO, subscribed 17.6 times, showed that institutional investors weren’t just casually interested; they were lining up for exposure to one of the few profitable, at-scale consumer fintechs in India.

Edtech

The case of BYJU’S Alpha’s missing $533M

In a new development in the long-running dispute over the missing $533 million from BYJU’S Alpha, a fresh filing by GLAS Trust in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court laid out how the funds were allegedly handled and highlighted inconsistencies with Byju Raveendran’s earlier public statements.

However, the founders of BYJU'S parent Think and Learn Private Limited, in a statement, “categorically and unequivocally reject the allegations made in GLAS Trust’s latest filing.”

The allegations:

• Oliver Chapman, Chief Executive of OCI Limited, a UK-based supply chain procurement firm to which the $533 million was ultimately transferred, in a sworn declaration, alleged the funds were not used for hardware or advertising purchases, as previously claimed.
• Chapman further declared in the court filing that the transfers were structured so that the “vast majority” of the Alpha Funds were intended to be moved through a series of opaque transactions to a Singapore corporate vehicle owned by Raveendran. 
• The founders noted in their rebuttal, “No portion of the $533 million in question has been used by founders directly or indirectly. The said amount has been used in its entirety for the benefit of Think and Learn, as evidenced in documents and bank statements.” 

TechSparks

Inside MakeMyTrip’s AI playbook

Whilst the AI buzz has reached fever pitch recently, MakeMyTrip has been quietly working with this technology for far longer. The company’s AI journey began with the mundane work of collecting, cleaning and structuring data at a scale that could support meaningful intelligence. 

“AI cannot be done without data, and therefore, the lead time for getting any AI feature out is rather long. You have to collect the data, control the quality and monitor it. It took us around two years to build a platform that ingests data and pushes out good-quality information from the other end,” Group Chief Technology Officer Sanjay Mohan remarked at TechSparks 2025.

News & updates

• AI bubble: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s hedge fund has sold off its entire stake in Nvidia during the third quarter, a regulatory filing showed, intensifying worries of an artificial intelligence bubble. The fund, Thiel Macro, sold around 537,742 shares in the AI chip frontrunner in the quarter.
• New chapter: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is throwing his money and time into an AI startup that he will help manage as its co-chief executive. The company, called Project Prometheus, is coming out of the gates with $6.2 billion in funding.
• Aviation news: Emirates has placed an order for 65 additional Boeing 777-9 aircraft, worth $38 billion at list prices, on the opening day of Dubai Airshow 2025. Emirates is Boeing’s largest customer in terms of wide-body jets.

What common office supply item is named for the Asian “abaca” fibre used to make them?

Answer: Manila envelopes

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