Prince Kariappa

As the Union Budget 2026 approaches, expectations are building across India’s financial services and startup ecosystem for policy signals that go beyond headline allocations.

India's VC market in 2025 was defined by selective capital, larger cheque sizes, and a clear shift toward profitability, execution depth, and exit visibility.

Globally, the capital reallocation toward technology-led fundamentals is already visible in hard numbers. To boost investments and stimulate growth in sectors such as the manufacturing sector, the government must consider reintroducing accelerated depreciation as a targeted fiscal incentive.

AI in Bharat's FinTech sector is becoming far more intuitive and deeply personal. The next phase of growth will be shaped by platforms that understand people in their own languages and reflect the rhythms of everyday financial life.

The investor conversation around it has matured, with the focus no longer on whether a startup uses AI, but on whether it shapes how the business operates.

Insights from early-stage venture firm Antler India and alternative credit platform BlackSoil illustrate how the year 2025 laid the groundwork, with 2026 shaping up to be a year of design rather than exuberance.

The sector is being defined by less speculative model-building and more by deployment, defensibility, and real-world integration.

After an "enthusiastic" post-pandemic capital cycle, venture investors and founders alike have recalibrated expectations, shifting focus from rapid scale to resilient business models.

GST collections have remained robust, and the decline in the October Consumer Price Index is supposed to provide the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with a bit of wiggle room for potential rate cuts - a move that could accelerate capex spending and consumption-led growth.

RBI supervisory disclosures and BIS working papers have highlighted the rising operational and fraud-related risks as fintechs continue to expand into credit, wealth, and banking-related services.

Speaking to Entrepreneur India, the company heads discussed the investment approach as it looks ahead to 2026.

Global and domestic institutions increasingly treat consumer-tech IPOs as part of their long-duration growth bucket, comparable to specialty retail or branded consumer platforms rather than traditional loss-making tech ventures. Retail investors, however, are engaging with offerings such as this in a structurally different risk environment.

Amidst the ambiguity, industry leaders opine that India's next big step should be toward a structured and modular regulatory framework.

With the proceeds from the fresh issuance, Meesho said it plans to scale its existing technology and cloud infrastructure, hire engineering and AI talent, alongside expand its marketing efforts.

Looking back on his early days as an entrepreneur, Bahl said that the difficult years in the restaurant business became the stepping stone for Veeba.

AI entering the pool has also turned out to be a curveball for investors, primarily because AI-first companies behave differently from traditional deep-tech, SaaS, or fintech businesses. Investor expectations of them are also significantly higher.

Despite the company boasting a strong market presence, with technology-backed manufacturing and fulfillment facilities in full swing, the muted company listing did not come as a surprise for many market experts, who had earlier expressed concerns over over-valuation and leaving little room for listing gains.

Existing investors such as PayPal, Mastercard, Actis Pine Labs Investment Holdings, and Peak XV Partners are set to offload their shares in the OFS, along with Pine Labs co-founder Lokvir Kapoor.

With the finals left for the Indian Women's team and Rodrigues to prove their mettle, we look back at her exclusive interview with Entrepreneur India from earlier this year, where Rodrigues speaks about early days, breaking into the first team, cricket for women, and the dreams that still live on.

According to the report, the third quarter recorded USD 11.7 billion in PE/VC investments, which was 20 per cent higher than its corresponding quarter in 2024, but 5 per cent lower than Q2 of 2025. The number of deals, however, was 11 per cent higher year-over-year (Y-o-Y), totaling 369 deals versus 331 in the third quarter of 2024.

The company's IPO is set to open on Friday, October 31, 2025. The price band is fixed at INR 382-402 at face value INR 2 each.

Finance commissions (FC) have steadily expanded the share of resources devolved to states, from 20.5 per cent in the 11th FC to 42 per cent in its 14th iteration – recorded as the largest increase in the country's history. The previous one held the share at 41 per cent while also accommodating the fiscal disruptions due to the pandemic.

The new Ola product will also be the first residential BESS in India, which is fully designed, engineered, and manufactured indigenously using tested automotive battery packs.

Chavan said that GeM acts like the "Amazon of the government procurement", describing it as a very successful experiment of the Indian government in terms of bringing together the industry, policy makers on a single platform, and generating business opportunities.

He also quoted data from the Centre of Science and Environment, according to which an unskilled worker loses anywhere between INR 7200-19,600 each year because of traffic, a skilled worker could lose up to INR 23,800, and a highly skilled worker could go beyond INR 30,000, pointing to the need for immediate decongestion in Bengaluru.

AI could add hundreds of billions to India's GDP over the coming decade if adoption accelerates, underpinning coordinated public and private investment plans.

Looking back on his early days as an entrepreneur, Bahl said that the difficult years in the restaurant business became the stepping stone for Veeba.

He pointed out that India's real entrepreneurial engine lies in its small and medium businesses, with the MSME sector having 67 million entrepreneurs producing 6–7 per cent of GDP.

Moderated by Punita Sabharwal, Managing Editor of Entrepreneur Media India, the conversation featured Arun Chittilappilly, Executive Chairman and Managing Director of Wonderla Holidays Ltd., and Harsh Binani, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Smartworks.

Homegrown brands have increasingly gained a foothold in Indian consumerism, with 58 per cent of the respondents saying that they like to shop for products mainly from local or small businesses, with 76 per cent of the group saying they appreciate authentic communication by local brands, along with innovative solutions for everyday problems.