Zerodha’s Wall Street Leap, Even Healthcare’s $50 Mn Raise & More

Brokerages Get A Ticket To Wall Street 

The Nifty 50 has dropped 12.4% YTD in 2026, the first yearly decline in over a decade, and FPIs had pulled a cumulative ₹3.1 Lakh Cr (around $33 Bn) over this time from Indian equities. With the stock market sliding and SIPs returning negative returns, retail investors also want to hedge bets against rallying US tech stocks. A clutch of discount brokerages like Zerodha, Groww, Angel One and Upstox are now enabling this exposure. So, what’s on offer?

Green Card For Indian Folios: Zerodha is now offering eligible users an option to invest in up to 2,000 US-listed companies and around 1,000 ETFs through its Kite platform. Users can opt for fractional investing, same-day delivery or SIPs. Funds can simply be transferred to dollar-denominated wallets through net banking, with UPI and card payments yet to be introduced. 

Desi Discount Brokers Go Global: Peers like Groww and Upstoxx had already launched similar offerings recently, with Angel One also joining the club on Monday. All four received approval from the International Financial Services Centres Authority in June to offer investors international and US stock options from GIFT City. Prior to this, IND Money and HDFC Securities were popular platforms for international investing. 

US Stocks Take The Cake: Direct exposure to international markets will allow Indian investors to not only hedge domestic concentration and diversify geographical risk, but also gain access to global technology megatrends like AI, cloud computing, and semiconductors, which are yet to enter Indian equity markets meaningfully. 

Brokers Eye Revenue Mix: The market slowdown in India, combined with SEBI’s derivatives reforms, is squeezing discount brokers’ core trading income, forcing them to diversify into lending and allied financial services. New demat account additions were down 22% YoY to 3.2 Cr in FY26, and discount brokers need to cross-sell more exciting products to existing users, making US stocks an enticing choice. 

So, as Indian investors look beyond domestic markets, here’s what Zerodha and its peers have to offer now…

From The Editor’s Desk

Tonbo Imaging’s IPO Concludes With A Bang 

• The defence tech startup’s ₹852.1 Cr IPO was subscribed almost 140X on the final day of bidding, receiving bids for 115.87 Cr shares against the 85.3 Lakh shares on offer. 
• QIBs led the demand with a 293.56X subscription of their quota, followed by NIIs at 170.94X, while retail investors bid for 31.07X their allotted shares. 
• Tonbo’s IPO comprises only an OFS of up to 1.22 Cr shares, with a price band of ₹665–₹700 per share valuing the company at around ₹4,010 Cr at the upper end. 

Even Healthcare Bags $50 Mn

• Even Healthcare raised $50 Mn in a Series B round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Alpha Wave, to expand its hospital network across Bengaluru.
• Founded in 2020, the startup operates a managed-care model combining preventive healthcare, diagnostics, hospitalisation and post-discharge recovery. It has raised a total of $120 Mn in funding to date. 
• The startup plans to open one hospital by end-2026 and three more by end-FY27 before expanding to more cities, while shifting focus towards hospital-led healthcare.

Curefoods Enters Budget Food Delivery

• Curefoods is piloting MegaBite in Bengaluru’s HSR Layout, offering dishes priced at ₹49–₹199 from its brands, including Rolls On Wheels, Olio Pizza, and Eatfit, with no delivery charges or platform fees.
• Founded in 2020 by Cult.fit founder Ankit Nagori, Curefoods has built a cloud kitchen portfolio through acquisitions. It paused its IPO process after receiving the SEBI nod due to valuation concerns. 
• This is the startup’s first attempt at running its own delivery platform, placing it in direct competition with other budget food providers like Swiggy’s Toing, Rapido’s Ownly and Rebel Foods’ EatSure. 

Hunar.AI’s Agentic Hiring Bet

• Bengaluru-based Hunar.AI raised ₹40 Cr ($4.2 Mn) in a Series A round led by Blume Ventures, with participation from existing and new investors. The funds will strengthen its AI infrastructure, products and go-to-market strategy.
• Founded in 2022 by Krishna Khandelwal and Shantanu Bhattacharyya, Hunar.AI is building conversational AI agents to automate frontline hiring, onboarding, training and employee retention across multiple industries.
• Hunar.AI claims its agents handled over 1.5 Cr conversations through September 2026, with volumes doubling QoQ. Its customers include Swiggy, Zepto, Croma, Starbucks and Bajaj Finserv.

Meta Faces Meity Algorithm Review

• The IT ministry has asked Meta to review Facebook and Instagram’s recommendation algorithms to prevent misleading or out-of-context content from being disproportionately amplified and to promote diverse, credible information.
• Meta has faced repeated scrutiny this year over its content moderation policies and the availability of CSAM on its platforms, resulting in stricter reporting guidelines. 
• The October 10 advisory calls for stronger content-review mechanisms, contextual information on visuals depicting public events, and faster escalation of posts that could trigger public confusion or disorder.

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

How Factrika Is Solving Blue-Collar Hiring Gaps For Factory

Manufacturers can lose valuable production time when workers fail to turn up, or demand spikes leave them short-staffed. To address this, Factrika is building an on-demand workforce platform that helps factories source, deploy and manage blue-collar workers based on skills, location and shift requirements.

Staffing On Demand: Founded in 2024 by Kshitij Puri and Gaurav Asthana, the New Delhi-based startup offers same-day staffing, absentee replacement, seasonal workforce deployment, project-based hiring and full-time recruitment. Its platform coordinates worker deployment, tracks attendance and arranges replacements when workers fail to show up.

Building A Factory Workforce: Factrika claims to have access to more than 10,000 workers through a network spanning over 4,000 ITIs and 1,000 polytechnic institutes. It says it has completed over 65,000 shifts with a 90% job-fill rate, operating across Bhiwadi, Bawal, Kharkhoda, Gurugram and Bahadurgarh. Its customers include Lenskart, Asahi India Glass and Jubilant FoodWorks.

Scaling Operations: Factrika recently raised ₹8.9 Cr to expand its team, strengthen its technology and enter more manufacturing clusters. As factories contend with fluctuating labour requirements and tight delivery schedules, the startup is betting that on-demand staffing will make shop-floor workforce management less chaotic. 

As manufacturers look for faster, more reliable ways to fill shop-floor roles, can Factrika become the go-to workforce platform for India’s factories?

Infographic Of The Day

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