Cofounder @thearc_hq | 0-1 at The CapTable & Stellaris VP | Economic Times & Reuters
Bengaluru, India
Joined September 2010
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🚨🚨 Value commerce (Meesho) and quick commerce (Blinkit, Instamart, Zepto) took a bigger share of festive ecommerce in the opening two days of the sales, at the expense of horizontal marketplaces (Amazon, Flipkart).
According to Redseer, part of the shift reflects the horizontal marketplaces’ reliance on smartphones, which accounted for 38–40% of their gross merchandise value.
Phones are in a slump. Shipments fell 10–13% year on year in the June quarter, according to IDC, Counterpoint and Omdia. Infact, this was the biggest June-quarter decline in six years.
Value platforms, meanwhile, are widening the festive basket. Their orders rose about 60%, they accounted for a quarter of all online fashion sales. The sales also attracted more new and smaller-town shoppers while the number of first-time shoppers doubled from last year.
🚨🚨Meesho says competitive intensity remains “manageable” as Amazon & Flipkart
continue to prioritise speed & convenience while Meesho remains focused on value commerce
Expects 25% NMV growth over the next 5 years.
Mgt at Jefferies event ⬇️
🚨 One in every 10 Instamart baskets now has a Noice product.
And customers buying NOICE order 1.5x more frequently with higher retention than the platform average.
Now Instamart is doubling down on its clean-food private brand.
Noice plans to double its network of 75 food entrepreneurs, expand to 500+ products and enter categories including spices, staples, cereals and dairy alternatives.
It is also offering financing of up to ₹5 crore each to help expand capacity and upgrade quality.
The bigger play: building a differentiated assortment that can give customers another reason to keep coming back to Instamart.
Read our deep dive into Noice and Instamart’s private-brand strategy: thearcweb.com/article/swiggy…
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
Apple Pay is finally live in India.
The product starts with Axis Bank credit cards to begin with.
Contactless payments with Visa and Mastercard cards.
But other large banks are still not live, which is important for scale.
Also commercials still continue to be a key conversation. Apple Pay is not cheap, and card players dont make very big margins in India.
But definitely an important moment
PS: When UPI was launched some of the largest banks like HDFC and SBI were missing among the first lot of lenders.
Mafia Inc. High conviction. Low trust. 😂
The faces of innocent women. Allegedly. ⬇️
@kumarharsha2212
@bansalvartika
@kanika_agarrwal
@anjali63505
And OG god @XitijKothi ❤️
What happens after @basecampblr, stays at Mafia night 😜
Celebrating @bansalvartika who basically ran the city last week 🖤
@kumarharsha2212 @minu_mm @prachipawaar @XitijKothi @kanika_agarrwal
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
As 10-minute delivery & large product assortments become standard in quick commerce, platforms are running out of ways to tie in users.
Swiggy is betting that what Instamart sells can provide the difference, driving customers to choose it over six rival apps.
Under a strategy called Switch, Swiggy Instamart is adding its own brands and exclusive products co-created with other companies. These products are marketed as higher-quality or better-for-you items.
This is not the usual private-label model built around lower prices. For example, two Swiggy-owned brands, Noice and Nectr, sit slightly above the mass market and sell on quality. The company believes customers will pay a little extra if the product feels sufficiently premium.
Private labels have already become a key part of Instamart. Around the time of Swiggy’s IPO in 2024, analysts and company insiders estimated that they accounted for 4-5% of gross order value.
That share has since increased to 8-9%, said people familiar with the business. Instamart’s GOV, meanwhile, grew from Rs 8,069 crore in FY24 to Rs 28,496 crore in FY26.
Our deep-dive thearcweb.com/article/swiggy…
As 10-minute delivery & large product assortments become standard in quick commerce, platforms are running out of ways to tie in users.
Swiggy is betting that what Instamart sells can provide the difference, driving customers to choose it over six rival apps.
Under a strategy called Switch, Swiggy Instamart is adding its own brands and exclusive products co-created with other companies. These products are marketed as higher-quality or better-for-you items.
This is not the usual private-label model built around lower prices. For example, two Swiggy-owned brands, Noice and Nectr, sit slightly above the mass market and sell on quality. The company believes customers will pay a little extra if the product feels sufficiently premium.
Private labels have already become a key part of Instamart. Around the time of Swiggy’s IPO in 2024, analysts and company insiders estimated that they accounted for 4-5% of gross order value.
That share has since increased to 8-9%, said people familiar with the business. Instamart’s GOV, meanwhile, grew from Rs 8,069 crore in FY24 to Rs 28,496 crore in FY26.
Our deep-dive thearcweb.com/article/swiggy…
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
Kunal Shah-led WhatsApp is planning a broader financial services play in India, going beyond payments.
Sources in the know told me that they are also planning to open up the platform for credit disbursals.
While WhatsApp, as an unregulated entity, will not take any loan exposure, it can use its distribution heft to acquire borrowers for lenders.
These talks are still early, the sources said. The final contours are still being worked out.
But India has never been a super-app market. WhatsApp Payments has shown limited adoption in India. Can all that change under the new leadership?
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
🚨 Snapdeal parent AceVector has filed its RHP and set a Rs 30–32 price band for the IPO.
The IPO will value the company at about Rs 1,750 crore.
The issue will raise Rs 420 crore in total - Rs 287 crore in primary issue and Rs 133 crore in offer for sale.
Selling shareholders include Softbank and Nexus Venture Partners.
AceVector houses Snapdeal, already listed e-commerce software co Unicommerce and consumer brands business Stellaro.
Its FY26 operating revenue rose 29% to Rs 510 crore, while its net loss narrowed 64% to Rs 46 crore.
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
Fintech companies have been building business around zero MDR on UPI.
Now they need to consider a new cost item.
For instance, over Rs 70,000 crore is processed by debt-collection agencies every month through UPI. Part of these payments could attract charges now.
As the dust settles around the MDR debate, the second order impact of the move is being felt in certain fintech sectors.
1. Wealthtech: Direct impact on stock brokers
2. Small ticket-sized lending: Impact on repayments (outside UPI Autopay)
3. Bill discounting: Need to relook into B2B UPI payments
4. Mid-scale merchant digital payments: How they try to shirk the Rs 1 lakh pm limit needs to be understood.
The moot point is fintech industry built use-cases, biz models around a zero-MDR UPI regime.
Now many of those arrangements will need to be relooked into.
A new cost item is getting backed into all these relationships. Founders will figure out impacts over the next few months.
Some are trying to push for inclusion of more categories into the flat fee structure. Some others are trying to lower the 0.4% charge.
The graphics below highlights who all might actually benefit from this MDR move?
We are hiring ⬇️
🚨 The Arc is hiring a Research Analyst.
Curious about how India’s fastest growing startups and tech businesses make money, compete and grow?
Enjoy digging through filings, listening/reading interviews and spotting insights others miss?
Join our team to cover fintech, consumer internet, venture and public markets.
This is a full-time role in Bangalore.
Apply through the form below.
Know someone who will fit? Please share this with them.
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
Amazon has said that its quick commerce unit has crossed $1 billion in annualised gross sales in India.
Amazon Now is in 60 cities now, plans to reach 100 cities by Diwali.
It has built a network of "750 micro-fulfilment and urban fulfilment centres", or dark stores.
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
Small ticket lending has predominantly become a non-bank affair.
Fintechs and NBFCs account for 97% of the no.of loans and 92% of the value of loans disbursed.
Small ticket lending calls for automated processes, fraud control and low unit-cost of disbursal of the loan.
This is where fintechs are winning. But banks dominate larger ticket size lending.
In terms of volume 87% of the fintech loans are sub Rs 1 lac, while they comprise 16% of the value.
Above Rs 5lac count is at 3.8% and value at 59%.
Point to note: NPAs have improved significantly over the last few years. 90+ delinquency for fintechs has fallen to 2.7% from 4.4% a year back.
Lenders are seeing good repayments and strong recovery as well.
Source: Unlocking Enterprise Intelligence, Equifax Report released at GFF 2026
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
Kissht may return to the market for fresh capital just four months after its IPO.
Parent OnEMI Technology’s board will meet on September 17 to consider raising funds through equity, warrants or convertible instruments.
The size has not been disclosed.
Kissht’s Rs 926 crore IPO listed on May 8, including a Rs 850 crore fresh issue and Rs 76 crore offer for sale.
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
The fundraising environment for VCs is tough right now, especially for micro-VCs that started during the 2020–21 cycle.
In that context, Sparrow Capital’s recent fundraise stands out.
It has grown from a Rs 4 crore first corpus in 2020 to raising Rs 475 crore for its third fund this year.
The venture firm has also managed to bring in global endowments and foundations, which is rare for a fund of this size.
Sparrow’s early bets include ecommerce enabler GoKwik and lab-grown diamond jewellery brand Aukera.
@AditiS90 has a deep dive on what has clicked for Sparrow...
thearcweb.com/article/sparro…
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
First off, I am ecstatic to see this post by @markpinc .. I feel Mark is the God of all things Product and as a former @zynga PM who also wrote the first check in @PocketFM_App on behalf of @LightspeedIndia, this is an absolute surreal moment for me! :)
Aditi Shrivastava retweeted
🚨 10 mins food-delivery startup Swish has raised $24 million in a round led by Bertelsmann India Investments, with participation from Accel, Bain Capital Ventures and Hara Global.
The funding comes as Swish crosses one million orders a month, three times its volume in March 2026.
That translates into more than 33,000 orders a day across 50 pincodes in Bengaluru and Delhi NCR.
Swish plans to use the capital to enter new cities and build more than 1,000 kitchens over the next five years.
🚨Urban ecommerce was built around the app. Rozana started with a phone number - because in rural India, commerce still runs on people.
Co-founder Ankur Dahiya knows this first-hand: she grew up moving across Haryana, 6-7 km from the nearest town, where the village shops stocked maybe 70 SKUs, most of them tobacco.
How Rozana is making rural commerce work:
thearcweb.com/article/rozana…
🚨🚨Ola Electric is raising Rs 1,500 crore - three months after it raised Rs 780 crore
The stock is at Rs 38: half the Rs 76 IPO price
This graphic lays Ola Electric's promises over the years - launches, bookings, claims - against what it actually delivered
@claudeai
