New-age twist to traditional mithai; India Quotient’s time-tested strategies

Hello,

It’s time for man to set foot on Mars.

Earlier this week, a consortium of American scientists and engineers filed a report that makes the case for sending humans to the Red Planet. A step towards figuring out whether life exists, or once existed, beyond Earth.

Speaking of Mars, investors are thrilled that SpaceX was mulling a potential IPO that would help fund Elon Musk's Mars ambitions and value the rocket and satellite company at more than $1 trillion.

If the company does go public next year, Musk’s total fortune would be a jaw-dropping $952 billion, up about $491 billion from its current level, Bloomberg estimates.

ICYMI: This year’s TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year is not one person but several ‘AI architects’. NVIDIA boss Jensen Huang, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, X owner Elon Musk and AI "godmother" Fei-Fei Li are among those featured on the magazine’s two covers.

While AI has had an extraordinary year, with several executives seeing their net worths soar, TIME’s big reveal came at a lousy day for the industry. Oracle shares plummeted more than 12% in premarket trading after the cloud computing giant reported massive AI-related expenses and a worse-than-expected outlook, CNN reported. The news dragged the broader market down, with several AI stocks sinking.

Lastly, from Ishikawa, Japan to Costa Rica, here are the top 20 places to visit in 2026. Which is your favourite?

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• New-age twist to traditional mithai
• India Quotient’s time-tested strategies
• Pioneering autonomous compliance systems

Here’s your trivia for today: What musical instrument is Antonio Stradivari most famous for making?

SMB

New-age twist to traditional mithai

For its cultural significance, the mithai industry remained largely traditional, dominated by family-run shops, guarded family recipes, and hyperlocal businesses. Today, a new-age brand is scaling exponentially and bringing a shift in the otherwise traditional segment. 

Only four years into business, Bengaluru-based India Sweet House (ISH) has already scaled to 50 stores, generating Rs 80.5 crore in revenue, up from Rs 47 crore in FY24. After doubling its revenue year after year, India Sweet House is now ambitious about going public.

Scaling up:

• To enter a category dominated by legacy brands, such as Anand Sweets, Kanti Sweets, Asha Sweets, and Haldiram’s, the founders decided to focus on three things: natural ingredients, standardised and quick expansion, and a differentiated consumer experience.
• Although the brand is experimenting with exporting through intermediaries, domestic expansion remains a priority. Today, ISH has stores across Bengaluru, Mysuru, Tumkur, Chitradurga, Hassan, Davanagere, Mangalore, Udupi, Shimoga, and Mandya.
• ISH is now planning for the future, one where Indian sweets resonate with a younger consumer base. This includes innovating with flavours, expanding to neighbouring states by 2026, and strengthening corporate governance structures ahead of a planned IPO.

Funding Alert

Startup: Inito

Amount: $29M

Round: Series B

Startup: Soleos Solar Energy

Amount: $12M

Round: Undisclosed

Startup: iSprout

Amount: Rs 60 Cr

Round: Debt

Interview

India Quotient’s time-tested strategies

Venture capital firm India Quotient has a proven blueprint for seed-stage investments in startups. As it endeavours to write a startup’s first cheque, it comes on board as early as possible and prefers working closely with founders from Day 1. This approach won’t change as it gears up for its fifth fund. 

With its new $129-million fund—its largest to date—the firm is not looking to tweak its strategy drastically. In fact, it is looking to double down on the framework that has worked for the company since 2012. The VC firm has reserved half the target corpus of Fund V for follow-on investments. 

Following blueprints:

• According to Kanika Agarrwal, Partner at India Quotient, Fund V follows the VC firm’s seed-first strategy: smaller fund size, coming in on Day 1, working closely with founders from the start. The firm’s typical cheque is anywhere from $500K to $2 million–3 million, depending on what the company needs at seed. 
• The firm also has a pre-seed platform, First Cheque, with the idea to give founders up to $400,000–500,000 at the paper-plan stage. So far, 12–13 First Cheque companies have gone on to raise from the main fund— significant given the firm does only 12–13 deals a year.
• Agarrwal also highlighted areas the firm is bullish on: India software, including AI; disruptions to Internet 2.0 and marketplaces, as well as brands that serve large, everyday markets where pricing, loyalty, and value matter.

Startup

Pioneering autonomous compliance systems

Compliance becomes a major issue for companies looking to scale. Every new deal brings a fresh cycle of evidence collection, screenshots, access reviews, policy updates, risk logs, and vendor questionnaires.

This recurring frustration, one experienced by co-founders Raghuveer Kancherla and Girish Redekar themselves, eventually became the trigger for Sprinto, which is a Governance Risk and Compliance automation platform that supports over 200 global security standards, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS.

News & updates

• Lawsuit: Microsoft was on Thursday accused of overcharging thousands of British businesses to use Windows Server software on cloud computing services provided by Amazon, Google and Alibaba, at a pivotal hearing in a 2.1 billion-pound ($2.81 billion) lawsuit.
• Weight loss: Eli Lilly on Thursday said its next-generation obesity drug delivered what appears to be the highest weight loss yet in a late-stage trial while reducing knee arthritis pain, clearing the first of several upcoming studies on the weekly injection.
• AI in Hollywood: Walt Disney is investing $1 billion in OpenAI and will let the startup use characters from Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel franchises in its Sora AI video generator, a crucial deal that could reshape how Hollywood makes content.

What musical instrument is Antonio Stradivari most famous for making?

Answer: Violin.

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