India's unicorns are not merely financial instruments generating returns for their investors. They are institutions — shaping employment norms, digital infrastructure, policy conversations, and the expectations of an entire generation about what work, wealth, and possibility can look like.
In 1995, Sanjeev Bikhchandani was a 32-year-old marketing professional with a steady job. He and his wife invested their life savings — ₹8 lakh — to start a small business in his father's backyard shed. Their idea: a job portal called Naukri.com. The problem? India had barely 10,000 internet connections, and almost no one looked for jobs online. Everyone said he was crazy. But Sanjeev believed that the internet would change everything. Today, Naukri.com is India’s largest online job portal, with over 70 million registered users and 150,000+ recruiter clients. His company, InfoEdge, is a $10 billion publicly traded giant that has also funded successful startups like Zomato, PolicyBazaar, and Swiggy. This article traces Sanjeev's journey from a backyard startup to a pioneer of Indian internet, and from a job portal founder to one of India’s most respected angel investors.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday kept the repo rate unchanged at 5.25%, opting for caution amid rising inflationary pressures triggered by the ongoing Iran–US conflict and global supply chain disruptions. The decision was unanimously approved by the six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which met between June 3 and June 5. The central bank also retained its neutral policy stance, while leaving the Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) rate at 5.00%, and the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and Bank Rate at 5.50%.
Excerpt: As the only woman in India leading a large‑scale fintech and payments platform, Upasana Taku has navigated one of the most competitive and male‑dominated sectors in the startup ecosystem. As Chairperson, Co‑Founder, CFO, and Executive Director of MobiKwik, she has guided the company’s transformation from a mobile wallet to a full‑stack fintech platform serving hundreds of millions of Indians. This research article chronicles her journey from the United States back to India in 2008, driven by a desire for grassroots impact, and analyzes her strategic role in leading the company to a successful IPO on the BSE and NSE in December 2024. We also examine the unique challenges faced by women in fintech leadership and the policy implications for India’s digital payments revolution.
Sometime in the third week of May 2026, three deals were signed in three different boardrooms that, taken together, will reshape the Indian financial‑technology landscape more profoundly than any single regulatory intervention or market shift of the past decade. On Monday, the digital‑lending platform KreditBee was acquired by a consortium led by Axis Bank and the private‑equity firm ChrysCapital for approximately $1.4 billion. On Wednesday, the insurtech startup Policybazaar, which had been publicly listed since 2021, announced a merger with its long‑time rival Coverfox, creating the largest digital‑insurance distribution platform in India with a combined valuation of approximately $3.8 billion. On Friday, the wealth‑management platform Scripbox was acquired by the mutual‑fund giant HDFC Asset Management for approximately $420 million, bringing the startup's decade‑long independent journey to an end.
To dismantle deep-seated financial disparities, the Delhi Government has launched an ambitious initiative providing collateral-free loans of up to ₹10 crore for women-led startups and Self-Help Groups (SHGs). By acting as the direct guarantor, the state eliminates the prohibitive need for property or personal asset pledges that traditionally block women from scaling their ventures. Accompanied by commitments to offer prominent retail spaces within premium city malls, this policy bridges the gap between grassroots local manufacturing and elite consumer markets, paving a smooth path toward financial independence.
In 2015, Sahar Mansoor was 24 years old and had a resume that most people twice her age would envy. She had graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in environmental law and environmental economics. She had worked at the United Nations and the World Health Organization in Geneva, contributing to policies that shaped global environmental governance. She was on a trajectory that led to corner offices, diplomatic receptions, and the quiet, respectable influence of a career in international policy. She was also deeply, persistently unhappy.
For decades, the United Kingdom has been viewed as one of the world’s most stable financial centers — a country where political transitions, economic policy, and investor confidence generally moved in predictable rhythm. But recent political uncertainty in Britain is beginning to challenge that reputation, and global markets are paying close attention