Pyng, launched on 15 April, is quite a departure from Swiggy’s core food-focused business. The service marketplace, uncharted territory for Swiggy, is offering services of “verified professionals” (think therapists, chartered accountants, and even energy healers).

No, it’s not a modified version of Urban Company. At least, not yet. For one, the latter offers standardised services comprising blue collar workers.

But why exactly is Swiggy, a company with a market capitalisation of over Rs 80,000 crore, diversifying 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.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

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The landscape is pretty bleak. In the race to produce more Ivy League-worthy students, Indian schools are selectively opting to teach IB. Teachers, in turn, find themselves shifting between the Cambridge and IB syllabi, often trying out things they aren’t trained for. Students and parents, meanwhile, are running in circles trying to find an able tutor after spending Rs 5–20 lakh on their child’s education. It helps no one that there are just a handful of dedicated, IB-trained teachers in the whole of India who can help students with the demanding curriculum.

Enter Sparkl Edventure.

With Sparkl, the former CEO of Aakash Institute is betting on these schools' inadequacies and our obsession with private tutoring.

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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.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

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When Rohan, a 35-year-old software engineer, signed up for a Rs 1 trial on a learning app called Seekho, he thought he had nothing to lose. He cancelled the subscription within weeks but money was still being deducted from his account months later.

UPI Autopay, the rising star of India’s subscription economy is quietly letting apps to keep charging users long after they think they've cancelled.

From overlooked SMS alerts to sneaky terms hidden in fine print, we find out how widespread this problem really is and why so many users are only waking up to it now.

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P.S The Ken’s podcast team is hiring! Here’s what we’re looking for.

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.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

Nearly a decade ago, Hotstar, Netflix, and Amazon Prime entered the scene and positioned themselves as the anti-TV. No fixed showtimes. No endless ad breaks. No re-runs you had to sit through just because nothing else was on. For the first time, we were in control. TV became personal. It became on-demand. And best of all—it was ad-free. It felt like there was no going back.

But now something has shifted. Subscriber growth is stalling, and that’s making streaming platforms nervous. Really nervous. Their answer? Bring back ads. Amazon Prime Video is the latest to jump into India’s ad-supported streaming game, also called ad supported video on demand or AVOD. And Netflix? It’s reportedly toying with the idea of a free, ad-supported tier here—just like it’s doing in a few other markets. In other words, OTT is starting to look a lot more like the very thing it was supposed to replace

Have we come full circle? Or is this just the natural evolution of an industry growing up? Daybreak hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to Swati Mohan, the former head of marketing at Netflix India, to find out

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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.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

Back in 2016, the Internet and Mobile Association of India set up an all new club for what was then a very small cohort of digital leaders in corporate India. It was called the all-India Chief Digital Officer club.

Back then, there were only about five-six CDOs that were members. The point of the initiative was to give legitimacy to this new, emerging role. But soon enough, the initiative fizzled out. Not because the role didn’t take off or anything. Actually, the opposite. The initiative became redundant because the role became even more popular than they had anticipated. So it started with 5-6 members, but within the next four years its membership rose to 50 and then doubled the next year.

You see, digital transformation has become THE buzzword for corporate India. And in the process, the CDO has become part of the companies top leadership.

But the question is — where does that leave the CIO?

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*This episode was originally published on 18 December, 2024

P.S The Ken’s podcast team is hiring! Here’s what we’re looking for.

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.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

For decades, the whole process of getting a loan approved was infamously painful and long winded. But now things have changed. Getting a loan is a whole lot faster than before. And that’s because of the disruptor to end all disruptors — artificial intelligence.

A bunch of companies have entered the scene with specalised AI tools to speed up different aspects of the loan-approval process. In fact, Indian AI startups have managed to raise nearly 750 million USD in 2024 and the banking and financial sector was one of the top drivers of this growth.

Now at first glance, it seems like a win-win for both the borrower and the bank. But there’s a catch. This surge has come with a lot of scrutiny from the RBI.

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*This episode was first published on Jan 15, 2025

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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.

Family offices—the ultra-rich who used to hand over their money to VCs and wish them well—are now wondering why they ever bothered. Why did they pay someone to do what they could do themselves, on their terms?

Their primary gripe? The funds are not returning money.

Of course, the so-called middlemen in this scenario aren't too pleased. After all, they are losing a substantial amount of business in the process.

But it all boils down to one thing – who’s running the money.

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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.

At first glance, things seem to be really looking up for India’s very own budget-friendly hotel chain Oyo. It’s had some pretty big wins in the last few months.

So why then is its eventual IPO still the subject of such widespread speculation?

The Ken's Deputy Editor Seetharaman G put it quite well in the latest edition of his newsletter on the Indian stock market, ‘Long and Short’. He said – ‘few companies are as good as Oyo Hotels at not going public’.

Its listing has been a few years in the making. It first filed in 2021. Then again in 2023. And then it was just about to give the share sale another shot when its largest shareholder, Softbank, threw a spanner in the works.

Here's the thing — between the delayed IPO, top notch rivals, and demanding investors, things will only get harder for Oyo.

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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.