India's Startup Scene Unlocked: Your Daily Insider Briefing

lot one on the block this morning geo platforms the public offering opens today and the anchor book just closed with bids topping $25,000,000,000 that's 30 times the shares they had on offer last time we talked about geo's record bids and well this is what they were bidding on a valuation of nearly $108,300,000,000 paddles are up all over the room indian it firms are on a shopping spree targeting ai and data companies in the us and europe with checks between 20 and $60,000,000 flipkart is officially challenging zomato and swiggy rolling out its in by minutes food delivery service in bengaluru by the end of the month and if you're trying to get apple's new foldable the iphone duo when it goes on sale october 23 you might be paying 50,000 rupees over retail in the gray market only 6,000 units are expected for the entire country in the first week a few other lots to watch discovered materials a startup using ai to find new semiconductor materials just raised a $9,000,000 seed round and sahi a

trading app from swiggy's former cto is in talks to raise up to $50,000,000 at a valuation that could hit 500,000,000 but let's get back to that main event the geo ipo bid 30,213 crore on the fresh issue price band is 1,065 to 1,119 a share that's a post issue market cap of 10.3 lakh crore rupees the book is 30 times oversubscribed 30 times global asset managers sovereign wealth funds indian mutual funds everybody wants a piece going once going twice sold the public issue opens today hammer's down let me tell you what that actually was that wasn't just a telecom company going public akash ambani is making it very clear geo is a technology company the money they're raising will help them get to net debt free status sure but this is fuel for their ambition in ai cloud computing enterprise tech and even satellite communications they see a huge market opportunity all over the world as a quick reminder this is general information not financial advice the other big move today is quieter but just

as important it's that m and a push from india's big it services firms they're not just trying to grow organically anymore they're buying their way into new markets and new skills the thesis has shifted as one banker put it decisively toward data ai and engineering they're buying access to specialist talent and new clients especially in the us and europe we saw it with tcs' largest ever acquisition in december and infosys' big healthcare it buyout in may this isn't a one off deal it's a strategy okay okay a price is just the last person who wanted it more and right now india's biggest tech players want a global footprint more than they wanna build it from scratch they're not waiting for an invitation to the top tier they're buying the ticket