Leverage Edu’s IPO, Rebel Foods Shuts QuickiES & More

Leverage Edu Preps For IPO Test

Leverage Edu is quietly preparing for the public markets. The edtech platform has initiated talks with both global and domestic investment bankers for a potential listing within 12–18 months. So, what does the study abroad platform’s IPO stack look like?

The D-Street Test: Leverage Edu is looking to raise anywhere between ₹2,000 Cr and ₹3,000 Cr though its IPO. While the company is yet to take a call on the breakup between fresh issue of shares and OFS component, it is internally eyeing a valuation of $900 Mn (₹8,362 Cr).

Leveraging The Moat: Bankers are pitching the company’s valuation alongside high-growth platforms like Zomato and ixigo. The rationale? Leverage Edu’s diversified horizontal stack. By embedding fintech services, accommodation, and travel insurance into its core application funnel, the startup has insulated its revenue from the seasonality of university intake cycles. 

Crucially, the edtech platform is also banking on its hefty top line growth and EBITDA profitability to win over cautious public market investors. Here is what the company claims its financial health looked like in FY26:

• Revenue zoomed 112% YoY to ₹375 Cr
• Turned EBITDA profitable 
• Over 55,000 users were added to its kitty, taking the total customer base to over 1.75 Lakh

The Headwinds: Despite its strong growth, Leverage Edu remains highly vulnerable to tightening visa regulations in key markets like the UK, Canada, and Australia. Additionally, the company may see difficulty in finding takers for its near-unicorn valuation, especially in the current environment of geopolitical tensions and market volatility. 

It must also convince sceptical retail investors that its high marketing spending won’t erode the slim EBITDA margins that the startup only recently achieved. With much on its plate, can Leverage Edu ace its biggest test yet? Let’s find out… 

From The Editor’s Desk

Rebel Foods Shuts QuickiES

• The IPO-bound cloud kitchen unicorn shut its quick delivery vertical earlier this year due to high cash burn. EatSure cofounder and CEO Sagar Kochhar, who was helming the vertical, also exited the company late last year.
• QuickiES, which was operational in select pin codes of a few major cities, delivered food from 45+ brands, such as Faasos, Wendy’s, Oven Story, LunchBox, and others, to customers in under 15 minutes. 
• With this, QuickiES has become the latest casualty in the quick food delivery segment. While Swiggy pulled the plug on SNACC earlier this year, Zomato also shut its quick food delivery service ‘Quick’ last year. Zing also shut operations last year. 

Aman Gupta’s OFF/BEAT Bags ₹100 Cr

• The latest venture of boAt cofounder has raised $10.7 Mn in its seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Gupta said that he has partnered with Bessemer to gain global perspective and leverage technology and AI.
• This comes a month after he first announced the launch of OFF/BEAT. While little is known about the company, the new company will likely operate as a venture studio platform, backing new ideas and founders. 
• This comes six months after Gupta stepped down from the role of CMO at IPO-bound boAt and moved to a non-executive director role. boAt has already received SEBI’s nod for its IPO, which will comprise a fresh issue worth ₹500 Cr and a ₹1,000 Cr OFS.

KisaanSay Bags ₹34 Cr

• The “direct-from-origin” food brand has raised $3.7 Mn in its Series A round led by the state-backed AgriSURE to strengthen supply chain, and scale distribution, marketing and hiring.
• Founded in 2023, KisaanSay is a food brand that claims to source staples (100+SKUs) such as rice, ghee, oils and spices directly from farmers. It then sells its products via offline stores and its D2C website. 
• Buoyed by affluent Indian consumers moving towards more health-oriented food choices, KisaanSay is eyeing a piece of the homegrown D2C market, which is projected to become a $300 Bn opportunity by 2030.

IPO-Bound CureFit Rejigs Board 

• Gym chain Cult.fit’s parent has roped in four independent directors on its board ahead of its IPO. These include ex-JP Morgan executive Kalpana Morparia, Celesta Capital MD Arun Kumar, ex-IAS officer Indu Bhushan and OpenAI India head Pragya Misra.
• This comes as the company is looking to list on the bourses soon. It has already shortlisted Axis Capital, Jefferies, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JM Financial as bankers to helm its potential ₹2,500 Cr public offering. 
• Founded in 2016, CureFit runs 700 gyms across 40 cities. The unicorn has raised more than $660 Mn to date. On the financial front, it managed to trim its net losses by 83% YoY to ₹483 Cr in FY25, while operating revenue surged 31% YoY to ₹1,215 Cr.

Ecoil Nets $2.5 Mn

• The clean energy startup has bagged ₹23 Cr in its Series A round led by Fundalogical Ventures to scale its operations, strengthen its tech stack and expand its presence across key markets in India.
• Founded in 2018, Ecoil collects used cooking oil from restaurants, hotels, cloud kitchens, and other food businesses and converts it into eco-friendly biodiesel. Including the current round, the startup has raised $5.72 Mn to date.
• Ecoil operates in the homegrown cleantech space, which is growing rapidly on the back of AI-led efficiencies, government sops and rising environmental awareness. Overall, the sector is projected to become a $152.5 Bn market by 2030.

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

Inside Panoculon’s Smart AI Glasses Bet

India’s smart glasses market is still in its infancy, with few homegrown brands making products tailored to local use cases, pricing and language needs. Panoculon Labs is trying to fill this gap by building AI glasses that are designed in the country and built for real-world assistance.

Wearable Intelligence: Founded in 2023, Panoculon is building AI-powered environmental perception systems. Its flagship smart glasses, Panocle, combine cameras, microphones, LiDAR and other sensors to provide personalised assistance. The startup positions Panocle as a wearable assistant that sees and hears what the wearer does, making it useful for contextual guidance, accessibility and decision-making. 

A companion app extends that experience by letting users capture photos, video and audio, then retrieve them later.

The Contextual Stack: Panoculon Labs has also built Trinet, a lightweight egocentric data-collection device, and MoMA, an AI meeting assistant that converts conversations into structured notes. With these, Panoculon is not only chasing consumer wearables but also building the data and workflow layers that make contextual AI more useful.

Moving Into B2B: Panoculon has also launched CheckMyPCB, a B2B SaaS tool that analyses whether a PCB design is correct against conventional design-rule checks. In doing so, the startup is diversifying its business into engineering workflows, a move that could help the bootstrapped startup monetise its deeptech stack quickly.

With the global smart glasses market projected to cross $8.3 Bn by 2030, can Panoculon Labs turn smart glasses into a practical AI interface?

Infographic Of The Day

Q1 2026 saw healthy interest from VCs in India’s startup ecosystem, with Stride Ventures and BlackSoil leading the pack. Here are the top investors who dominated the headlines… 

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