Daybreak The Ken

When you think of the average unicorn-status startup, PocketFM — a homegrown audio streaming platform — is somewhat of an anomaly. Its main claim to fame? Very dramatic, borderline NSFW Hindi fiction audio series’. 

Its content can best be described as ‘masala’ entertainment. And yet, millions of listeners tune in every day to listen to stories like ‘I love you monster’, or ‘Karan Arjun reloaded’, or ‘Millionaire Ghar Jamaai’. While all this may not be your cup of tea, it has really worked for PocketFM. So much so that the company is now just inches away from a $1 billion valuation. 

Ever since it was launched in 2018, PocketFM has taken some pretty risky business decisions. Like in late 2021, when it decided to enter the US market. 

But even though most of its big, bold bets paid off overseas, there is one thing PocketFM has been struggling to do. And you’ll surprised to hear this: Despite such an enviable user base, and investors buzzing around it, in India, PocketFM is struggling to get users to actually pay for its content.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the last few years, companies like Everest that manage cab fleets have become the silent battalion in Uber’s army of cabs. In fact, 90% of Everest’s fleet is with Uber.
This, of course, has helped Everest grow its revenues and both seem to have found their relationship to be mutually beneficial. Everest gets to run its assets on a high demand platform. And for Uber, it become so much easier to manage its cars.
So Uber is deepening its ties with Everest, especially with Uber Green in mind. But as Uber gives more control to the fleet management company, the basics of the ride hailing business could change forever.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Last month, the Reserve Bank of India directed credit card issuers or banks to not sign exclusive contracts with card networks, like Visa and Mastercard, that restrict them from using other networks. The RBI did this because it said consumers deserve to have the freedom of choice. 

This new rule will be effective from early September and it will change the credit card game as we know it.

For starters, the American card network giants Visa and Mastercard who together have been dominating 90% of the market for forty years now will no longer be sitting easy. The directive is also bad news for co-branded credit cards, one of the most popular products in the financial-services market.

But for home-grown Rupay, this is great news. It's almost like the government has created a fast lane for it. But will Rupay take it and win?
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In 2021, Campus Activewear took away the top spot in India's athleisure-footwear market from Puma, thanks to its affordable and trendy sneaker offerings. And by May 2022, it became a publicly listed company. Within a span of five months after its listing, its valuation shot up to a staggering US$2.2 billion.
However, two years later now, its market capitalisation has nosedived to under US$890. The reason is a combination of factors including the slow down in demand and also, an ever-increasing number of competitors with similar offering.
But out of all its rivals, there is one that stands out–Abros. And it was co-founded by a man who worked with Campus for nearly three decades.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories. 

Just like every Lok Sabha election in the last 72 years, millions of people will vote for a new government over the next couple of weeks.  
But there is one thing that really sets this election apart. Never before have political parties actively used Generative Artificial IntelIigence at this scale. It is a turning point in India’s electoral evolution. 

Some AI startups in India have been developing hyper-personalised voter experiences for political parties. This comes at a time when Gen AI tools like deepfakes have become very sophisticated — to the point where even experts often  struggle to tell what is real and what is not. 

In the run-up to the election, when you are being bombarded with political content, videos and images, this can be very dangerous. Yet, there are barely any rules in place to regulate the use of this technology during the election process. 

What does this mean for the world’s largest democracy? 
Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In January, the RBI, more or less killed Paytm Payments Bank. But Paytm Bank was the backbone of its loan business, the same business that helped it recover from its post-IPO bloodbath.

Now, Paytm’s lending partners, on whom its loan business is dependent, are spooked  They dont know if they should continue working with Paytm. Meanwhile, Paytm is doing its best to save what it can but Paytm Payment Bank is currently in limbo. Last week, Survinder Chawla, the MD and CEO of Paytm Payments bank also put in his papers. 

So far, we don't know what is going to happen but there’s one thing we know for sure: Paytm is doing everything it can to separate itself from Paytm bank, which was once an integral part of its business.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
**Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken