Inviting India’s next breakout startups; Preparing for the festive season

Hello,

IPO season continues.

Zetwerk Manufacturing Business Limited has secured approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India for its proposed initial public offering. With this, the company has crossed an important regulatory milestone in its journey towards a stock market debut.

The proposed IPO is expected to comprise a fresh issue of equity shares and an offer for sale by existing shareholders, although the final issue size and valuation will be determined through the book-building process.

Moving on, doomscrolling is taking away hours of users’ time and the European Union thinks that’s a bad idea. It has accused Meta of breaching its social media law by designing Facebook and Instagram to get users hooked, and demanded it disable “key addictive features” like infinite scrolling.

Meta now has the chance to respond and defend itself before the commission issues its final decision, which could result in a fine worth up to 6% of the company's global annual revenue, per a PTI report.

Meanwhile, India’s government said it has received WhatsApp's reply to the notice on 'username' feature and is examining it, PTI reported citing sources. The development follows a notice that was issued to the Meta-owned messaging platform last Wednesday. The Centre had questioned WhatsApp's proposed username feature, raising concerns over online fraud, phishing, and digital arrest scams.

Elsewhere, Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications at OpenAI, said she is stepping down from her full-time executive position at the AI major to prioritise her personal health.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Inviting India’s next breakout startups
• Preparing for the festive season

Here’s your trivia for today: What famous landmark in Arizona, US, was discovered by Garcia Lopez De Cardenas in 1540?

TechSparks

Inviting India’s next breakout startups

Techsparks 2026, YourStory’s flagship technology summit, is around the corner. And, YourStory is inviting applications from startups for Tech30 2026. This year's summit is centred on the theme ‘The New Tech Order’, reflecting a shift as Indian deeptech moves from early promise to real-world impact.

Every year, Tech30 identifies 30 early-stage startups building breakthrough technologies out of India. The 2026 cohort will be unveiled at TechSparks 2026 from October 13-15.

Best of best:

• Tech30 alumni include companies such as Freshworks, Chargebee, Juspay, Innovaccer, Capillary, Skyroot, Pixxel, Qure.ai, Addverb, Hasura, Digantara, Apna, Onsurity, and DeepSource.
• Collectively, previous Tech30 cohorts have produced two IPOs, five unicorns, nine soonicorns, and 45 minicorns. They have created more than 35,000 jobs while building companies across 53 locations.
• Nearly two-thirds of all Tech30 alumni (64.3%) are still actively building, a strong indicator of the programme’s ability to identify companies with long-term potential.

<Top Deals of the Week>

Startup: Adage Automation

Amount: Rs 230 Cr

Round: Growth

Startup: Elevate Education

Amount: Rs 170 Cr

Round: Series D

Startup: Aukera

Amount: Rs 90 Cr

Round: Undisclosed

Retail

Preparing for festive season

For years, online shopping portals have relied on deep discounts to pull customers during festive season sales. A new report suggests that early planning, real-time inventory visibility and faster fulfillment are as important as discounts. 

The Festive Readiness Report 2026 released by AI-native retail technology company Fynd, was based on data between March 2025 and June 2026 across Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, AJIO, Nykaa, and JioMart

Key takeaways:

• The report found that festive demand in 2025 peaked eight days before Diwali, while pre-Navratri direct-to-consumer orders rose 16% year-on-year.
• Average discounts narrowed from 44% in 2024 to 34% in 2025, suggesting shoppers continued to spend despite lower markdowns.
• More than half of festive sales came from products priced below Rs 2,000, reinforcing the importance of value-led pricing over blanket discounting.

News & updates

• Tough times: Europe’s largest automaker Volkswagen plans to cut its model lineup and further reduce capacity, although the company hasn’t announced any job cuts so far.
• AI stock: South Korean semiconductor company SK Hynix's US trading debut on Friday after its $26.5 billion share sale will be a key test of ​investors' belief in the durability of the AI boom. The development comes even as chip stocks have lost some momentum in recent weeks due to investor concerns over AI use. 

What famous landmark in Arizona, US, was discovered by Garcia Lopez De Cardenas in 1540?

Answer: The Grand Canyon

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