Pine Labs, Meesho eye D-Street address; Rapido's food delivery outlook

Time of India

11-06-2025

Pine Labs, Meesho eye D-Street address; Rapido's food delivery outlook
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Also in the letter:
Pine Labs gears up for Rs 5,000-6,000 crore IPO
Why it matters:
The details:
IPO size: Rs 5,000-6,000 crore
Rs 5,000-6,000 crore Target valuation: $4–5 billion (flat to last private round)
$4–5 billion (flat to last private round) Bankers: Axis Capital, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Jefferies
Axis Capital, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Jefferies FY24 revenue: Rs 1,743 crore (up around 10% YoY)
Rs 1,743 crore (up around 10% YoY)
FY24 loss before tax: Rs 339 crore (up around 50% YoY)
Founding history:
Adding context:
Between the lines:
Meesho to file draft IPO papers in coming weeks: Report
Rapido will need to go all out to battle Zomato, Swiggy in food delivery, say brokerages
Little impact:
Measured response:
Zoom out:
Read our in-depth coverage of Rapido's food delivery entry:
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What's next:
Early investors await Meta-Scale deal windfall: Report
Investors gains:
Beneficiaries of the deal include Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Tiger Global, and Accel.
While the agreement is yet to be finalised, Meta is expected to pay $14-15 per share.
Early backers, including Outlander VC, Y Combinator, and angel investors Greg Brockman and Nat Friedman, had reportedly invested at just 1–3 cents per share, according to Scale AI's Delaware charter.
Tell me more:
Meta is set to acquire a 49% stake in Scale. Most of the capital is expected to be used to pay dividends to shareholders, including current and former employees as well as venture investors.
Once the deal closes, Scale AI's CEO Alexandr Wang and other employees are likely to join Meta's workforce.
Also read:
Google offers voluntary exit to US staff, including search and ad teams
More details:
In a memo, K&I head Nick Fox stated the VEP is intended for employees who are no longer 'energised' by their work or are struggling to meet expectations.
Separately, some teams have asked employees living within 50 miles of a Google office to return to a hybrid work schedule.
Previous round:
Latest cuts:
Liquid Glass meltdown as memes roast Apple for AI flops, stale tech
Apple AI, iDud:
All the hype:
iPhone production slows but steadies in May at Rs 15,000 crore
Looking back:
Pine Labs plans to file its draft prospectus for its IPO by the end of June, while Meesho is likely to follow suit shortly after. This and more in today's ETtech Top 5.■ Scale AI investors' payday■ Google offers voluntary exit■ Liquid Glass meltdownAmrish Rau, CEO, Pine LabsPine Labs is preparing to file its draft IPO papers with Sebi by the end of June, according to people familiar with the matter, as the fintech firm targets a public listing later this year.The move places Pine Labs among the growing cohort of Indian fintech players heading for the public markets in 2025, alongside Groww and PhonePe . The planned offering follows its recent shift of domicile back to India.Pine Labs was founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, Rajul Garg and Tarun Upadhyay. Originally a loyalty and card-based payments solution, the company pivoted in the late 2000s to focus on merchant payments.Pine Labs had confidentially filed for a US IPO in 2022, aiming to raise $500 million. However, it deferred the plan due to market volatility.Backed by Peak XV Partners, Alpha Wave PayPal , and Vitruvian Partners , the company has steadily expanded into online payments, buy now, pay later (BNPL), account aggregation, and gift cards. It has used acquisitions such as Fave, Setu Mosambee , and Qwikcilver to fuel this expansion.Meanwhile, Meesho is planning to confidentially file for its IPO in the next few weeks, according to a Bloomberg report. The SoftBank-backed etailer is looking to raise $700–800 million from the public offering.The company converted into a 'public limited' entity from a 'private limited' one, ET had reported on June 10 . It is in the process of redomiciling to India from the US.Rapido will face an uphill task in attracting customers as it enters the food delivery space with a commission structure that undercuts larger rivals by half, according to brokerages. However, it may not need to spend heavily on brand building, given the groundwork already laid by incumbents Zomato and Swiggy.Zomato and Swiggy remain deeply entrenched within both the restaurant and customer base, and Rapido poses only a limited threat, Kotak Institutional Equities noted.As the rollout is currently limited to Bengaluru, Bernstein expects no material impact on overall market share.A rapid food delivery scale-up by Rapido, potentially driven by aggressive discounts, could dent the financials of Zomato and Swiggy. In turn, the incumbents are likely to respond cautiously to protect their margins, said Karan Taurani of Elara Capital.Zomato and Swiggy currently enjoy take rates that are well above those of their global peers, according to HSBC Research. Kotak expects this metric to remain steady given the sector's muted growth outlook.Even so, Rapido and other challengers are unlikely to pose a threat to the incumbents' take rates.ETtech Top 5 and Morning Dispatch are must-reads for India's tech and business leaders, including startup founders, investors, policy makers, industry insiders and employees.Interested? Reach out to us at [e-mail] to explore sponsorship opportunities.Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta is finalising a deal to invest $15 billion in Scale AI, in a move that would significantly strengthen its AI talent pool and deliver significant returns for early investors in both companies, according to The Information.Google has rolled out a voluntary exit programme (VEP) for employees in the US, as part of its efforts to trim overall headcount. The move involves 'buyout packages'—severance offers designed to encourage staff to leave on their own terms.The offer spans multiple divisions, including Knowledge and Information (K&I), which covers search and ads, as well as central engineering, marketing, research, and communications.In January, Google extended a similar offer to employees in its Platforms and Devices division, which includes Android, Pixel, and Chrome. By April, the company laid off hundreds of employees from the same unit.Just last month, Google let go of 200 employees from its global business unit.Liquid Glass, Apple's headline act at its 2025 developers' conference, quickly became the punchline as the iPhone maker skipped over any major AI breakthroughs.CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino called this year's flagship software event "a dud" on the AI front. Barclays, which hadn't expected much, still came away 'slightly disappointed.''This feels like what ChatGPT thinks people want from Apple,' one X user posted.Touted as the biggest visual overhaul in over a decade, the glass-like interface was meant to dazzle. Instead, concerns about readability and accessibility dominated the conversation. One user even compared it to Windows Vista's translucent interface – and not in a flattering way.Apple's India vendors produced iPhones worth over Rs 15,000 crore in May, according to two market research firms and industry data. Output dipped slightly from the breakneck pace of the previous two months, yet stayed well above the Rs 10,000–11,000 crore monthly average in 2024.The slight slowdown comes as US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25% tariff on devices sold in the US but made overseas.