Zepto gets SEBI approval for $1B IPO; Bringing Indian folk art online
Founded in 2020 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, Zepto has gone from a pandemic-era experiment in rapid grocery delivery to an IPO-bound company in just five years.
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Digital lending platform Kissht made its debut on Indian stock exchanges on Friday with share price rising by 12% during early morning trade as against its issue price of Rs 171. Its share price continued to rise through the day and ended at Rs 209 on the NSE registering a 22% increase.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka IT Ministry convened a high-level spacetech ecosystem consultation chaired by Minister Priyank Kharge. The meeting brought together startups, academia, industry leaders and institutional stakeholders to strengthen Karnataka’s position as India’s leading commercial space innovation hub.
ICYMI: Hyderabad-headquartered spacetech startup Skyroot Aerospace this week secured $60 million in funding. With the fresh capital, the startup achieved a pre-money valuation of $1.1 billion, becoming India’s first spacetech unicorn.
Speaking of space, machine learning is helping researchers find new planets. In a new study, researchers used machine learning to filter data from NASA's exoplanet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). They found 10,091 previously undiscovered planets.
Lastly, the Pentagon on Friday released what it says are “never-before-seen files” on UFOs after US President Donald Trump directed the agency to do so earlier this year, CNN reports.
Does life exist beyond Earth?
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Zepto gets SEBI approval for $1B IPO
- Bringing Indian folk art online
Here’s your trivia for today: What archaeological site is known as the Lost City of the Incas?
News
Zepto gets SEBI approval for $1B IPO
Image credit: Shutterstock
Quick commerce company Zepto has received key approvals from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), clearing a critical regulatory milestone on its path to a public listing.
SEBI issued its observations on Zepto's draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) between May 4 and 8, as part of a batch of approvals covering six companies.
Key takeaways:
- Founded in 2020 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, Zepto has gone from a pandemic-era experiment in rapid grocery delivery to an IPO-bound company in just five years.
- Zepto's IPO is currently expected to be sized at approximately Rs 8,000–9,000 crore, revised down from an earlier target of Rs 11,000–12,000 crore.
- If the listing proceeds, Zepto will join rivals Zomato and Swiggy on the exchanges, both of which have already navigated the public markets.
<Top Funding Deals of the Week>
Startup: Skyroot Aerospace
Amount: $60M
Round: Undisclosed
Startup: Pronto
Amount: $20M
Round: Extended Series B
Startup: Ecofy
Amount: $15M
Round: Undisclosed
Social impact
Bringing Indian folk art online
Entrepreneur Yosha Gupta’s love for traditional Indian art nudged her to start MeMeraki, a tech-enabled platform that works with over 500 master artisans across 300+ traditional art forms. The company helps artists reach global customers and build sustainable livelihoods.
Key takeaways:
- Though Gupta entered this space as an outsider, her work has always orbited a trifecta of the things she loved—art and craft, impact, and technology.
- MeMeraki has also worked on a range of unconventional commissions. For example, Yippee Noodles wanted to show how its product pairs with local Odisha snacks like Jhalmuri.
- MeMeraki handles the entire process of onboarding an artist, including creating their profiles, writing descriptions, training them on basic photography and travelling to their locations to create content.
News and updates
- Chip shortage: Nintendo and Sony both flagged the impact from surging memory prices on their games businesses on Friday, as the artificial intelligence boom constrains chip supply and deepens disruptions across the tech sector.
- Conflict: Japan's Toyota expects the effects of the Iran war to cost it about $4.3 billion this financial year, in one of the most significant warnings yet by a global company on the wider impact of the conflict.
What archaeological site is known as the Lost City of the Incas?
Answer: Machu Picchu
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