Will Ekart Ship On Time This Time? 

In a merciless twist of company irony, Myntra is ditching Ekart, its in-house logistics platform, to win the fast commerce race. So, how did Flipkart’s $500 Mn guess on logistics fall quick — to the purpose the place even its personal group corporations are hesitant to make use of it?

The Achilles Heel: Designed for Flipkart’s two-to-three-day supply playbook, Ekart’s enterprise mannequin was optimised for value, not pace. Ekart’s operational DNA — constructed round massive warehouses on metropolis outskirts — makes it ill-suited for hyperlocal and quick commerce. Its long-haul vans and inter-city workforce pale compared to the agile fleets of rival logistics corporations and fast commerce gamers delivering in minutes.

A Monetary Drag: For Ekart, pivoting to fast commerce would require a whole overhaul — new darkish shops, separate fleets, and a recent tech stack. Flipkart could resist this capital-intensive train, as it’s going all out to chop prices forward of its IPO. Making issues worse is Ekart’s losses, which ballooned 5X YoY to INR 1,718 Cr whereas income declined 5% YoY to INR 12,115 Cr in FY24.

Amazon Exhibits The Means: Amid its struggles, Ekart could study a factor or two from its direct competitor. Amazon Transportation Companies grew its revenues 7% YoY to INR 4,543 Cr whereas trimming losses 6.9% YoY to simply INR 80 Cr. Its secret weapon? Superior tech stack and demand prediction algorithms that make Ekart look stone-aged.

All stated and carried out, what may fit in Ekart’s favour is its years of expertise and the granular information it has mined within the final decade. However, with fast commerce rewriting the principles of logistics, can Ekart reinvent itself?

From The Editor’s Desk

Funding Picks Up Tempo: Indian startups mopped up $272 Mn throughout 18 offers final week, up 38% from the $197.4 Mn garnered by 25 startups within the previous week. Truemeds and Zepto topped the charts by elevating $65 Mn and $46 Mn, respectively.

Rapido’s Ownly Goes Reside: The ride-hailing big has rolled out its meals supply service in three pockets of Bengaluru. Taking over giants like Zomato and Swiggy, Ownly is trying to poach prospects from rivals by providing zero supply charges and funds meals. 

New-Age Tech Shares Revive: Of the 36 new-age tech shares beneath Inc42’s protection, 21 gained in a variety of 0.31% to almost 50% final week. With this, m-cap of startup shares crossed $100 Bn. Yatra and ixigo have been the largest gainers, zooming 47.9% and 14.27%, respectively. 

makeO Acquires Apple Dental: The mum or dad of dental tech startup toothsi has acquired the Andhra Pradesh-based dental clinic chain for INR 11 Cr in a cash-and-stock deal. makeO provides dental, pores and skin and hair remedies.

India’s Semicon Push: India is growing a silicon-based fabrication facility, with a capability of fifty,000 wafer begins per 30 days. IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated that six items – one fab and 5 meeting, testing, marking and packaging items – are beneath building.

Monitoring Listed Startups: Within the final 5 years, the variety of listed startups in India has zoomed to 40. The median inventory value improve for worthwhile corporations has been 31% since their itemizing, whereas the loss-making ones have witnessed a decline of 42%.

Startups’ FY25 Scorecard: Forty-three startups reported a cumulative income of INR 1.26 Lakh Cr in FY25, up 36.4% YoY. Whereas 15 reported a cumulative web lack of INR 8,086.4 Cr within the fiscal beneath assessment, the remaining posted a cumulative web revenue of INR 4,577 Cr.

Zoomcar’s Sombre Q1: The automobile rental market’s web loss widened 66% to $4.2 Mn within the quarter ended June 2025 from $2.5 Mn within the year-ago quarter. The Nasdaq-listed firm’s income from companies grew 5% to $2.3 Mn from $2.2 Mn a yr in the past. 

Inc42 Startup Highlight

Utilizing AI To Sniff Out Shady Biz Offers

In an period the place a handshake isn’t sufficient, handbook background and due diligence checks have grow to be a dangerous, cost-intensive, error-prone and time-consuming enterprise. Based in 2024, Hound goals to resolve this downside with AI. 

Instantaneous Danger Checks: Hound has developed two key instruments to offer smarter, sooner, and dependable threat assessments. The startup’s first product supplies an on the spot world threat evaluation assistant, scanning 1000’s of information factors, to determine and flag potential dangers. 

The second providing is an expert-level forensic audit engine, which analyses monetary paperwork like annual experiences to robotically detect purple flags comparable to tax discrepancies or related-party transactions.

Hound’s AI Edge: The startup leverages AI to automate a historically handbook and costly course of, permitting corporations to conduct a radical monetary well being examine in a fraction of the time. It additionally displays for brand new threats in actual time, notifying customers as they come up.

A Regular Begin: Inside a yr of its inception, Hound claims to have already crossed 100 early signups and is trying to safe 5 enterprise pilot tasks quickly. It goals to take its paid person base to 100 by the tip of this yr and clinch 10 enterprise tasks by 2027.

With the Indian threat evaluation market projected to grow to be a $1 Bn alternative by 2033, can Hound’s AI-powered method assist it capitalise on this rising alternative?