🍬 ₹175 Cr for a South Indian Sweets Empire

☀️ Good morning! It’s Tuesday, and the tea is getting spicy 🔥

With US-India tensions boiling over tariffs, Indian exporters are sweating, Perplexity’s playing hide and seek with robots.txt, and Swiggy is delivering snackable workplace nirvana. But it’s not all heat — Wall Street is cooling off inflation fears, and Practo is proving that profitable healthtech isn't a myth.

Let’s sip through the chaos 👇

🫖 Chai Shots

• 🍬 A91 writes ₹175 crore cheque to Shree Anandhaas: The Coimbatore-based sweets chain will use the funds to expand across Chennai, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. It’s the company’s first-ever institutional funding, joining a trend of PE bets on fresh sweets (as opposed to packaged mithai), following deals like Motilal Oswal’s Lal Sweets investment. More in the Big Brew!

• 🇺🇸 US warns of even higher tariffs on India over Russian oil: US President Donald Trump accused India of profiting from Russian oil sales and threatened to “substantially” increase tariffs beyond the 25% already announced. He claimed India resells Russian crude for profit while ignoring the war in Ukraine. India hit back, calling the move unfair and pointing out that the US itself trades billions with Russia.

• 🍱 Swiggy targets office desks with DeskEats: The food delivery app launched ‘DeskEats’ across 30 cities and 7,000+ business parks, offering themed meal combos like ‘stress munchies’ and ‘teamwork bites’ tailored for desk workers. Pilot data shows Bangalore loves popcorn chicken, while Gurugram prefers garlic breadsticks. It follows Swiggy’s earlier corporate rewards push to deepen office lunch dominance.

• 🤖 Perplexity caught dodging anti-scraping firewalls: Cloudflare claims AI startup Perplexity masked its identity and changed bot signals to bypass websites’ robots.txt restrictions and scrape data secretly. Despite Perplexity denying the charges, Cloudflare said it verified the behaviour across thousands of domains and de-listed the company’s bots.

📈 Market Masala

• 📊 Markets rebound as investor nerves settle: After Friday’s panic selloff over weak US jobs data and Trump’s tariff shocks, Indian equities roared back Monday. Sensex surged 419 points to close at 83,861 and Nifty reclaimed 24,700. Tata Steel gained 4%, riding global metals momentum, while Adani Ports (+3%) and Tech Mahindra (+2%) also led gains.

• 📉 SEBI plans to ease related-party transaction rules: India’s market watchdog is proposing to raise the threshold for shareholder approval on related-party transactions from ₹1,000 crore to ₹5,000 crore, based on turnover. SEBI also suggested relaxed disclosures for smaller deals under ₹150 crore, aiming to reduce red tape for large firms.

• 🛢️ India’s US exports may shrink by $26 billion: Think tank GTRI says Trump’s 25% country-specific tariff and added penalties could cause a 30% drop in India’s exports to the US — down from $86.5B to $60.6B this fiscal. Apparel, jewellery, shrimp, and engineering goods face the steepest duties.

• ⚖️ Policybazaar fined ₹5 crore for compliance lapses: IRDAI has penalised the insurtech unicorn after a remote audit revealed non-disclosure of key management roles in other firms, vague outsourcing contracts with insurers, and delays in transferring customer premiums. The violations stemmed from a 2020 inspection but the fine was issued this week.

🌍 Global Masala

• 📈 Wall Street roars back from Friday’s dip: US stocks rebounded sharply with the Nasdaq rising 1.9%, S&P 500 up 1.5%, and the Dow gaining nearly 600 points. The surge came despite Trump’s tariff threat and a weak jobs report, with investors betting on interest rate cuts in September. Palantir rose 4% on record revenue, while Tesla gained on a $30B Musk compensation package.

• 🛫 Asia Opens Mixed Amid Trump Tariff Talk: Asian markets saw choppy starts after Trump vowed to raise tariffs on India, accusing it of reselling Russian oil for profit — comments that rattled investor sentiment regionally.

☕ The Big Brew: 🍬 A Sweet Deal for South India’s Mithai Giant

Shree Anandhaas, a beloved sweets and snacks brand from Coimbatore, just bagged its first big cheque — ₹175 crore from private equity firm A91 Partners.

The nearly 30-year-old family business started as a restaurant and entered the sweets space in 2017. Today, it runs 19 outlets, is profitable, and clocks nearly ₹290 crore in annual revenue. The fresh capital will help Anandhaas expand across Chennai, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and other southern cities.

What’s notable? It’s part of a larger trend: investors are eyeing traditional, family-run food businesses as more Indians shift from unbranded sweets to trusted, hygienic names.

Here’s the mithai math:

• 🍭 First funding ever: This is the company’s first institutional round after decades of bootstrapped growth.

• 📈 Valuation buzz: Based on revenue multiples for food brands, Anandhaas may now be valued between ₹1,000–1,200 crore.

• 🏪 Expansion mode: Plans are on to open 25–30 stores in Chennai and enter cities like Kochi, Madurai, and Tirupati.

• 🍰 Wider trend: It follows other big investments like Lal Sweets (₹330 crore from Motilal Oswal) and Haldiram’s $10 billion valuation.

What does this mean?

India’s sweet shops are going from local legends to national brands. With rising demand for clean, consistent food experiences, investors see huge potential in giving these family-run businesses a modern makeover. Shree Anandhaas is just the beginning.

🚀 Startup Scoop

• 💊 Practo turns a profit, plots global growth: The healthtech firm posted a ₹15 crore operating profit in FY25 — its first full-year profitability — serving 50M patients globally. With positive cash flows and plans for an IPO, Practo is doubling down on AI-led care and international expansion, already active in the UAE with 50K users.

• 📉 Antfin exits Paytm with ₹3,800 crore bulk deal: Alibaba affiliate Antfin is selling its final 5.84% stake in One97 Communications at ₹1,020/share — a 5% discount to market — completing its phased divestment. Goldman Sachs and Citi are managing the deal.

🧠 Chai Break Trivia

📦 Did you know India has over 13 million kirana stores — more than the number of retail outlets in the US and EU combined?

While Swiggy is wooing corporate offices with ‘DeskEats’, the humble neighbourhood kirana still dominates how India shops and snacks 🍿

🔮 What’s Brewing Next

• 📈 IPO Eyes on Practo: With profitability confirmed and expansion underway, Practo may soon file for its public market debut.

✌️ That’s a wrap!

From tariff trauma to mithai money and healthcare heroes, this week’s news brewed up the full flavour spectrum. Global politics are adding the spice, but India Inc. is still stirring the pot with innovation, grit, and strategy.

Until tomorrow — stay grounded, stay curious, and keep sipping Masala Chai ☕🇮🇳