Newsletter
Reliance's $11B bet on AI, Meesho eyes ₹6,000 crore IPO, and deal frenzy.
🗓 Morning, folks!☀️
Markets hit fresh record highs on Thursday.
The Nifty pushed past 26,300 and the Sensex even crossed 86,000 for the first time ever. So what kept the market moving? A steady flood of money from Indian investors.
SIPs, retail buyers and strong local liquidity are acting like a safety net, even as foreign investors continue to pull out.
💡 Spotlight: iPhone surge pushes Apple past Samsung 📲
For the first time in 14 years, Apple is set to overtake Samsung in global smartphone shipments in 2025, according to Counterpoint Research.
Apple is expected to ship 243 million iPhones, compared to 235 million units from Samsung, giving Apple a 19.4% global market share, ahead of Samsung’s 18.7%.
The surge is driven by strong demand for the iPhone 17 lineup, a milder-than-expected impact from U.S. tariffs, and a weaker dollar supporting global sales.
Let’s hit it!
1 Big Thing: Reliance JV to build a $11 billion data centre in Andhra 🛜
Reliance, along with its US and Canada-based partners under The Digital Connexion joint venture, is set to build an $11-billion AI data centre in Andhra Pradesh.
The deets: the investment will last five years and is a collaboration between Reliance, Canada-based Brookfield, and US-based Digital Realty.
The centre will be established in the capital city of Visakhapatnam with a capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW).
For context, 1 GW can power 6-8 million Indian homes, or 10 hyper scale data centres, or an entire national telecom network.
FYI: the announcement coincides with L&T’s pledge to invest $2.5 billion in constructing five data centres, including a Visakhapatnam facility, with a combined capacity of at least 300 MW.
So far, the state has drawn $26 billion in commitments for AI-based projects, with capacity expected to hit 2 GW by 2031.
What’s in for other parties: with this investment, Reliance positions itself to compete with global tech leaders like Google and Anthropic, both of which are planning their own data centres in the region.
Meanwhile, Brookfield and Digital Realty gain access to India’s vast and rapidly growing market, projected to reach 900 million internet users by year-end.
2. TCS and SAP join hands 🤝
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a five-year deal with SAP to drive Cloud and Gen AI transformation.
SAP is known for helping companies manage finance, supply chains, HR, sales and operations through one integrated system.
What’s going on: TCS will take on the heavy lifting of simplifying SAP’s complex IT landscape, ensuring smoother operations and strengthening AI-led capabilities across the organisation.
Background: this move builds on a two-decade collaboration between the two companies, during which TCS played a major role in scaling SAP’s enterprise cloud services.
Why it matters: TCS is modernising the core systems of a company that powers thousands of global enterprises. If successful, this could unlock improved AI tools, lower costs and stronger performance across SAP’s entire ecosystem.
While we are on deals,
Wipro signed a multi-year deal with Odido Netherlands to enhance the company’s IT landscape.
Odido Netherlands is a telecommunications provider that offers services including mobile, fixed-line, and fiber optic internet to both individuals and businesses.
What’s happening: under the partnership, Wipro’s WEGA and WINGS AI platforms will help automate and streamline Odido’s enterprise technology landscape.
Wipro’s conversational AI will boost Odido’s customer responsiveness across multiple languages, while its design platform will help scale products faster and more efficiently.
3. Big IPOs lined up! 💸
Social commerce platform Meesho is gearing up for its stock market debut on December 3, offering fresh shares worth ₹4,250 crore.
Worth noting: Meesho now aims for a $5.6 billion valuation, a sharp drop from the $10 billion it once chased.
What’s happening: the issue also includes an offer-for-sale of 10.55 crore shares by existing investors such as Elevation, Peak XV, Venture Highway and Y Combinator.
With this, Meesho also joins the list of new-age tech companies that went public this year, including Groww, Lenskart, PhysicsWallah and Pine Labs.
Big theme: India’s e-commerce engine is only getting started. The industry, worth $125 billion in 2024, is on track to hit $345 billion by 2030, clocking a strong 15% annual growth.
More on IPO street,
Juniper Green Energy is gearing up for its ₹3,000 crore IPO and is expected to hit the markets by mid-December this year.
The company develops and operates large renewable power projects, supplying clean energy to major state and central agencies.
This IPO will be a pure fresh issue with zero OFS, signalling a push for new capital rather than investor exits.
The company’s scale-up has been rapid. From its first 100 MW solar project in 2020, Juniper Green has raced to a massive 7,800 MW renewable portfolio across solar, wind and hybrid projects, backed by modern battery storage systems.
4. Venture Street warms up…💰
Ace International is raising $35 million led by Dutch Development Bank FMO.
Ace International makes and exports dairy products, turning raw milk into nutrition ingredients, whey proteins, powders, fats and formulations for both B2B and B2C customers.
What’s poppin’: Ace International is gearing up for a major expansion with a second manufacturing unit planned in Andhra Pradesh.
Its Uttar Pradesh plant already handles a hefty 500,000 litres of milk daily, but the new facility will raise the stakes.
It’s set to bring better dairy nutrition technology to Asia and fuel the production of specialised, high-value nutrition ingredients for global food and health brands.
Bottomline: India is the world’s largest milk producer, with output rising to 239.3 million tonnes and projected to reach 242 million tonnes in 2026, contributing 32% to global supply.
While we are on fundraises,
Square Yards has also raised $35 million in a round led by South Korea-based Smile Gate Group.
Square Yards runs a full-stack real estate and mortgage ecosystem spanning search, discovery, transactions, home loans, interiors, rentals, and property management.
The deets: this fundraise fires the first shot in Square Yards’ bigger playbook as it gears up for a ₹2,000 crore IPO in 2026.
Worth noting: the upcoming infusion, a mix of debt and equity, is poised to push Square Yards into the unicorn league, making it one of the rare Indian proptech players to hit a billion-dollar valuation.
5. Stocks that kept us interested 🚀
1. Patel Engineering lights up with ₹798 crore orders 📈
Patel Engineering’s shares shot up 15% intraday after the company received two major work orders worth ₹798.1 crore.
Patel Engineering builds large infrastructure projects, including dams, tunnels, irrigation systems, hydroelectric plants, mining works, and other heavy civil engineering construction across India.
Breaking it down: the company has been chosen to handle digging, moving, and transporting coal for a project in Chhattisgarh for South Eastern Coalfields.
Looking ahead: Patel Engineering added that these new orders come on top of a strong list of ongoing bids worth over ₹34,000 crore that are still being evaluated.
The company is also expecting fresh project opportunities worth another ₹18,000 crore to open for bidding by the end of this financial year.
2. Sterling and Wilson bags ₹1,313 crore South Africa order ⬆️
Sterling and Wilson Renewable Energy has bagged a solar project of 240 MW AC worth ₹1,313 crore in South Africa. The stock gained on the back of this news.
The Mumbai-based company provides engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) and operations and maintenance (O&M) for solar, hybrid and battery storage projects.
Some background: with this order, the company now has four projects in South Africa across multiple developers.
Its total order book for the year now stands at ₹5,088 crore.
Big picture: with South Africa’s solar market expected to grow 11.7% and reach 15.25 GW by 2030, Sterling and Wilson is well-placed to tap into rising power demand, especially as the country targets 17.8 GW of installed solar capacity by the same year.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
👓 Popmart collab: Lenskart Solutions partnered with Labubu maker Popmart’s Sweet Bean for a limited-edition launch in Singapore.
🔻 Stake sale: Whirlpool of India tumbled 11% after a huge 1.5 crore share block deal, with reports suggesting promoters may have sold a major stake.
🚗 Deal dropped: CarTrade Tech shares fell after the company ended discussions for acquiring CarDekho and BikeDekho, saying it will focus on strengthening its existing platforms.
💳 Aggregator nod: RBI granted final approval for Paytm’s payment aggregator licence, allowing it to onboard merchants and enable online transactions.
🎨 UAE expansion: Asian Paints’ subsidiary will invest ₹240 crore to set up a new manufacturing facility in the UAE, putting the stock in focus.
And that’s a wrap. Pour yourself an extra one this weekend.
We’ll be back like clockwork on Monday!
Hit that 💚 if you liked this issue.
