The CapTable

🚨  💸  Less than a week ago, The CapTable did a deep dive on the Hindi film industry's increasing appetite for corporate capital. In a piece titled '𝑾𝒉𝒚 𝑩𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒚𝒘𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒔', we explored how corporate investors are stepping in to monetise the vast cultural assets of legacy producers and powerhouse content studios, while production houses are lapping up the "𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥" these deep-pocketed investors are bringing in... at a time when 𝐛𝐨𝐱-𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 is at its peak and the industry's traditional safety nets are disappearing. 🤝 🎬 In line with the structural shifts Bollywood is witnessing today, Reliance Industries-backed Jio Studios has announced that it is acquiring a 𝟓𝟎.𝟏% 𝙚𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 in Sikhya Entertainment—an Academy Award-winning Indian production house—through a combination of primary and secondary transactions for an aggregate 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙝 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 ₹150 𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙧𝙚. "𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝐽𝑖𝑜 𝑆𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑜𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑆𝑖𝑘ℎ𝑦𝑎 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜-𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑚𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑𝑤𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑔𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝐽𝑖𝑜 𝑆𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑜𝑠’ 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒, 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ, 𝑓𝑜𝑐𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦, 𝑛𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟-𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑦𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔-𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚 𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑆𝑖𝑘ℎ𝑦𝑎’𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑡, 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔," the companies said in a joint statement. The larger question is whether 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐌&𝐀𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 will commoditise the film industry’s creative output. And is Bollywood inching closer to the 𝑯𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒚𝒘𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒐 𝒔𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎? READ MORE on The CapTable. 🔗 Link in comments (✍️ Sohini Mitter)

Most companies respond to senior exits with more hiring. Flipkart responded with more reshuffling. Fewer SVPs, wider mandates, and over a third of VP-level leaders changing roles. Read today’s story to see how Flipkart is structured, and the who’s who shaping the company ahead of its IPO. By Pranav Balakrishnan

Walk into a supermarket. Pick up a tin of Darjeeling tea. What you don’t see? Rocks, rain, and chemistry quietly pulling carbon out of the air. Indian climate tech startups are turning farms into carbon sinks, using science that actually holds up under scrutiny — measurable, verified, permanent. From tea gardens to the ocean floor, carbon is being locked away for 10,000+ years. And India might just be building the most credible carbon market in the world. The real question: Can science scale faster than climate change? Full story in the Captable deep dive. Shivani Muthanna | Sai keerthi Varaha | Boomitra | Auri Grow India | Maati | FloraCarbon AI #ClimateTech #CarbonRemoval #DeepTechIndia #SustainableFarming

Aakash was supposed to be the steady anchor in Byju’s big expansion story — an old-school, profitable coaching chain backing an online giant. Instead, delayed payments, promoter-linked funding, lender deals, Singapore holding vehicles, boardroom tussles and a disputed rights issue have turned that acquisition into a layered ownership battle. Read more, link in the comments. By Nikhil Patwardhan

India’s coffee boom looks loud ☕️ New cafés. New brews. But the real winners? - Beyond the cups and beans? 👉 Coffee machines! They make money when cafés open, scale, upgrade, or even shut down. This isn’t a café story. It’s an infrastructure story. For more on the where the real profits of India's coffee boom lie - watch the video and subscribe to the Captable. Read full article from link in the comments. #IndianCoffee #CoffeeBusiness #StartupEconomics #InfrastructurePlay #CapTable #foodtech Anuj Suvarna | Shivani Muthanna

Want to know how to use AI coding tools for everyday work? Wondering what the Bee Gees have to do with it? Read more to find out, link in the comments.

PhonePe has won India’s biggest fintech race. Nearly 1 in 2 UPI transactions run through it. But is it enough for the fintech giant to win public market investors’ confidence? 🧵 With UPI, PhonePe built scale and dominance. But it didn’t build a profit engine. Payments are increasingly a commodity — low margins, intense competition, expensive distribution. So PhonePe’s “next act” isn’t optional anymore. Over the last few years, PhonePe has quietly placed multiple bets: Insurance. Lending. Broking (Share.Market). App store. Commerce. The pitch is clear: use the UPI base to build a full-stack fintech. The execution? Still unfolding. Now, with Sebi approval in hand, PhonePe is inching towards what could be one of India’s biggest new-age IPOs (talk of $12–15B). Public markets will ask what private markets didn’t: Is dominance enough? Or does it need a second engine? By Nikhil Patwardhan Link in the comments.

The gig worker protest raised a bigger question than pay or incentives: what actually makes a protest succeed in platform economies? Today’s story looks at where this one landed — and why. Read more, link in the comments. By Pranav Balakrishnan & Shivani Verma

The Unacademy–upGrad deal was supposed to be Unacademy’s clean exit from years of reset. A term sheet had been signed. Investors had accepted a steep valuation haircut. And then, on Jan 5, it collapsed. Why? 🧵 Officially, upGrad’s Ronnie Screwvala cited valuation. But multiple sources said the deal had progressed far beyond “negotiations”—Screwvala had met Unacademy’s team in Bengaluru, and the transaction looked close to completion. So what really spooked the buyer? Sources point to deeper concerns: Unacademy’s structure as a patchwork of businesses, the complexity of integration, and an offline vertical that insiders describe as operationally painful and expensive to run. The collapse now forces a bigger question: what is Unacademy without a deal? Munjal has told employees the company will exit company-owned offline centres and pivot to a leaner model, and he will be back at the helm. The next chapter depends on one thing: execution. Read more, link in the comments. By Nikhil Patwardhan

Launching to space is now 95% cheaper — Reusability changed the game. SpaceX proved it. Now Indian spacetech startups want to turn rocket recovery into a real business. Funding is flowing. Tech is getting bolder. But the real question isn’t who builds the rocket… It’s who builds enough demand to rocket - relaunch and repeat! 🚀 Read The CapTable to go beyond the reusable rocket hype. Link in the comments. #SpaceTech #IndianStartups #NewSpace #VentureCapital #DeepTech Parvathi Benu | Shivani Muthanna | Ethereal Exploration Guild | AgniKul Cosmos