Q-Comm Poaching Wars, Table Space’s IPO & More

Quick Commerce’s New Battleground

It is poaching season in India’s quick commerce arena. Swiggy Instamart has brought in a CEO from Myntra, while Nykaa has poached an executive from the Sriharasha Majety-led giant to scale its quick commerce arm. So, is a talent war brewing ahead of the festive season sale?

New CEO At Instamart: The quick commerce major is refreshing its leadership bench with the appointment of ex-Myntra CEO Nandita Sinha as its new chief executive. Succeeding Amitesh Jha, she is expected to sharpen Instamart’s assortment-led strategy, steady operations and lead its push toward an inventory-led model amid intense competition and pressure to rein in losses.

Rejig At Nykaa: The beauty ecommerce major has roped in former Instamart COO, Ankit Jain as the business head of its quick commerce arm, Nykaa Now. With proven quick commerce expertise from his tenures at Flipkart and Swiggy, he is expected to double down on ultrafast deliveries and expand its dark store network. 

Talent Wars: Behind the trend is a likely deficit of a battle-tested leadership that has expertise in managing inventory, dark store logistics and supply chains. As legacy juggernauts like Nykaa and Flipkart lock horns against natives like Instamart, Blinkit and Zepto, everyone seems to be on a hunt for top talent to bypass the steep learning curve in quick commerce. 

Q-Comm Mania Continues: Beyond dedicated apps, quick commerce is now also reshaping traditional retail. Vishal Mega Mart is doubling down on 30-minute deliveries to further drive revenues and bring new customers to its fold. In Q1 FY27, Vishal Mega Mart’s ultrafast delivery network expanded to 767 stores, with the service contributing 2-9% to a store’s revenue. 

In a market where talent, formats and strategies are all in flux, can new leadership turn operational challenges into profits? Let’s find out…

From The Editor’s Desk

Cursor’s India Rate Card

• The AI coding platform has introduced an India-only subscription plan, priced at ₹649 per month. This comes weeks after SpaceX announced plans to acquire the startup for $60 Bn in an all-stock deal.
• By localising pricing, Cursor will look to convert its large user base in the country into paying customers. With its users in India tripling to 3 Mn in the past year, the country has emerged as the platform’s third-largest market globally.
• This comes at a time when global AI giants are doubling down on the Indian market. OpenAI launched the lower-priced subscription tier, ChatGPT, Go last year, while Anthropic rolled out Rupee-denominated pricing for Claude earlier this month.

Pine Labs’ Q1 Profit Run

• The fintech major’s net profit surged over 4X YoY to ₹19.6 Cr in Q1 FY27 on the back of improving margins, growing top line, stronger payment volumes, a rising merchant base and expansion of its international businesses. 
• Operating revenue also rose 20% YoY to ₹736.9 Cr in Q1. Nevertheless, expenses continued to bite and rose about 11% YoY to ₹728.1 Cr during the June quarter.
• On the operational front, Pine Labs processed nearly ₹4.22 Lakh Cr in GTV across 201 Cr transactions. It also added 40 new merchants on its platform in Q1, including the likes of ixigo, OLA, IRCTC and BSES.

Table Space Gears Up For IPO

• The managed workspace provider plans to file its DRHP with SEBI for a $350 Mn IPO next month. The public issue, which will comprise a fresh issue of shares worth $104 Mn and an undisclosed OFS component.
• Founded in 2017, Table Space offers managed office solutions to 425+ enterprises. It claims to manage over 11 Mn sq ft of workspace across 80-plus centres in nine Indian cities. It reported a loss of ₹1,561 Cr in FY25 against a top line of ₹1,360 Cr.
• Buoyed by growing demand for flexible workspace solutions, a number of coworking startups have gone public in the past two years, including the likes of Awfis, Smartworks, WeWork India, and IndiQube.

More Layoffs At Krutrim

• In its second round of retrenchments this year, the troubled AI unicorn has laid off another 20-25 employees. The layoffs, which impacted nearly half of its workforce, primarily affected the product and engineering teams.
• While Krutrim executives internally attributed the layoffs to AI-led automation, multiple employees alleged that reimbursements for travel, food and accommodation expenses have remained unpaid for over five months. 
• The retrenchments come months as Krutrim grapples with overstretched ambitions, a funding crunch and revenue concentration. In the past year, it has pivoted from building LLMs to cloud services, discontinued its AI assistant and seen multiple top-level exits.

New Management At Bira91

• In a major ownership shift at the troubled alcobev brand, Anicut Capital has taken control of founder Ankur Jain and his family’s 17% stake in Bira91. The firm will also nominate three directors to its board and will lead the restructuring efforts.
• This comes a week after Jain gave up executive control and exited the D2C brand’s board as part of a settlement with lenders and investors. Existing backers are now expected to recapitalise the startup to clear pending dues and restart production.
• Founded in 2015, Bira91 quickly scaled into one of India’s well-known beer brands. However, troubles erupted after it converted into a public company, which triggered fresh excise approvals, disrupted production, write-offs and delayed vendor payments.

Snitch Acquires Berrylush

• With an eye on expanding beyond menswear, the D2C fashion brand has acquired the women’s fashion label for an undisclosed amount. Post the deal, Berrylush will retain its brand identity and will continue operating under its existing team.
• Founded in 2018, Berrylush sells dresses, co-ord sets, jumpsuits, workwear for Gen Z and millennial women. It is now looking to become a ₹1,000 Cr brand in the coming years by leveraging Snitch’s tech stack, supply chain and omnichannel footprint.
• Snitch began as an offline menswear brand before pivoting to ecommerce during the pandemic. It currently operates 115 stores across India, and closed FY26 with an operating revenue of ₹900 Cr and an EBITDA of roughly ₹18-27 Cr.

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

Building The Data Download Layer For Satellites

India’s spacetech boom has created a new bottleneck: satellites are generating far more data than the legacy radio infrastructure can download. QOSMIC is trying to fix this problem with its optical ground stations that can receive data faster, cheaper and at much larger volumes.

A Laser Sharp Bet: Founded in 2025, QOSMIC is building a system that uses precision telescopes and optical-mechanical tracking systems to receive laser signals from satellites. Its ground stations act like high-speed data docks for satellites to pull down far more information per pass than traditional radio links.

The Indigenous Edge: QOSMIC claims that its critical IP sits in its proprietary optical front-end and pointing, acquisition and tracking chain. Meanwhile, the cost advantage comes from its integrated architecture, under which it manufactures most critical parts locally but sources some externally. On the business front, it plans to earn revenue by running a ground-station-as-a-service model instead of one-time hardware sales. 

Scale & Validation: The startup claims to have already validated its full chain over a 10 km terrestrial link and has reached technology readiness level 6. Its next milestone is an in-space demonstration and in-orbit validation scheduled for next year. Backed by Accel and Prosus, QOSMIC is also pursuing partnerships with players like TakeMe2Space to build orbital data centres. 

With the startup seeing strong demand from international satellite operators in the near term, can QOSMIC become the backbone that helps satellites send more data home?

Infographic Of The Day

As influencers champion body positivity, the conversation around fashion is changing. A new generation of brands is racing to serve India’s rapidly growing plus-size apparel market. Here is all about it…

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