It’s Friday, chai fam! 🥳 

From IPOs overflowing like festive mithai boxes to Starbucks shutting cafés, from GST 2.0 easing household wallets to global debt ballooning again — today’s brew is a hot mix of masala, money, and momentum. Let’s pour.

📰 Chai Shots

• 💰 Debt mountain grows: Global debt touched a record $338 trillion in H1, matching the pandemic-era spike. Emerging markets now owe $109 trillion and face $3.2 trillion in repayments this year, raising red flags on fiscal stress.

• 🏦 Sitharaman’s confidence play: At Bank of Maharashtra’s 91st Foundation Day, the FM said India’s 8% average growth since 2021–22 was “no accident” but the result of bold reforms, infra investment, and UPI’s global success. She urged banks to treat complaints as opportunities to innovate and emphasised strong balance sheets to support infra growth.

• 🚀 Accenture’s AI fuel: Q4 revenue climbed 7% YoY to $17.6B, beating Wall Street forecasts of $17.38B, driven by a surge in AI-driven consulting projects. Margins remained tight, but the Street cheered its ability to turn buzz into business.

• 🛒 Govt may relax FDI norms for e-commerce exports: A DGFT draft proposes letting platforms like Amazon and Flipkart hold export-only inventory to ship Indian goods abroad, creating new channels for MSMEs while tightening safeguards to prevent misuse. More in the Big Brew 👇

📈 Market Masala

• 📉 Markets stay under pressure: The Sensex slid for the fifth day in a row, falling over 550 points as foreign selling and visa fee worries weighed on IT and bank stocks. Trent and Power Grid were among the hardest hit, while metals bucked the trend on a copper rally after supply disruptions in Indonesia.

• 🥤 Reliance’s mega food parks: Reliance Consumer Products signed a ₹40,000 crore pact with the Food Processing Ministry to build Asia’s largest food parks, powered by automation and green tech. Early sites in Maharashtra and Andhra will kick off Reliance’s march toward a ₹1 lakh crore FMCG empire.

• 🛩 HAL’s fighter jet boost: Hindustan Aeronautics bagged a ₹62,370 crore order for 97 Tejas Mk-1A jets to replace MiG-21s. With higher local content and new indigenous systems, the deal strengthens squadron numbers at a crucial time for the Air Force.

• 🚂 Swiggy on tracks: Just in time for festive travel, Swiggy rolled out new Food on Train features: city-famous dishes, neatly packed “Easy Eats,” a pure vegetarian section, and a discount zone with 60% off. The site now runs smoothly even with patchy internet.

• 💳 Simpl gets grounded: RBI ordered BNPL startup Simpl to stop payments immediately for lacking the required authorisation. The platform, used on Zomato, BigBasket and Rapido, had 7 million users but now faces a serious rethink of its business model.

🌏 Global Masala

• 💳 Amazon pays up: The tech giant will hand over $2.5 billion to settle US regulator claims it tricked users into Prime and made cancellations messy. Amazon admitted no wrongdoing but will now need clearer disclosures and easy opt-outs.

• ☕ Starbucks’ bitter brew: The chain is closing around 500 stores in North America and trimming nearly 900 corporate jobs in a $1 billion reset. Falling sales have pushed it to remodel cafés and focus on service hours to regain its “third place” vibe.

☕ The Big Brew 🛒 Amazon, Flipkart, and India’s export rethink

New Delhi is considering a major policy shift that could reshape how small Indian businesses sell to the world. The government’s trade body, DGFT, has drafted a proposal to tweak foreign investment rules so that global e-commerce giants like Amazon, Flipkart, and even eBay can directly manage export-linked inventory.

Right now, India bars foreign e-commerce companies from owning inventory, restricting them to a “marketplace” model. That means they can connect buyers and sellers but can’t stock products themselves.

The new idea? Create special export-only entities. These arms could hold inventory, handle logistics, and manage compliance — but only for goods leaving India.

Here’s why it matters:

• 🚚 Simplifying exports for small sellers: Less than 10% of India’s MSMEs selling online currently export, largely because of red tape around paperwork, packaging standards, and customs. Dedicated export entities would take care of these headaches.

• 💸 Sharing the benefits: Export entities would still claim perks like GST refunds and duty drawbacks, but they’d be required to pass those benefits back to MSME sellers proportionately.

• ⚖️ Strict guardrails: Any attempt to sell export inventory in India’s domestic market would invite stiff penalties, including deregistration and fines of up to 200% of undue benefits claimed.

📦 Amazon, for instance, says it has already helped Indian sellers ship $13B worth of goods globally since 2015 and has ambitions to push that to $80B by 2030. If rules change, that journey could accelerate.

What does this mean?

• 👩‍🌾 For MSMEs: A big boost — many small sellers who struggled with compliance costs could finally plug into global supply chains with less friction.

• 🏬 For retailers: Concerns remain. Indian trader groups fear Amazon’s financial muscle could overshadow small brick-and-mortar stores if rules aren’t tightly enforced.

• 🌏 For India’s trade story: This could be a smart move in India’s bid to grow exports while formalising MSMEs and creating jobs. It also signals to the U.S. that India is open to finding middle ground on trade disputes.

🚀 Startup Scoop

• 👕 WROGN slips further: Virat Kohli’s fashion label widened losses to nearly ₹76 crore in FY25, even as revenues dipped again. With expenses rising despite weaker sales, the brand highlights how celebrity-led D2C bets don’t guarantee success.

• 🌯 California Burrito’s fresh funds: The QSR chain raised up to ₹120 crore from Elevation Capital to expand from 110 to 140 stores. After years of losses, it finally turned profitable last year as sales nearly doubled.

• 🍎 Handpickd’s zero-inventory bet: Founded by Milkbasket’s Anant Goel, the fresh produce startup raised $15 million to expand its farm-to-home service. It delivers fruits and vegetables within 7 hours of harvest using AI to predict demand.

• 🛋 Flipspaces’ big exit: Carpediem Capital exited the interior design startup with a 9X return. Flipspaces grew revenue 11X, expanded to the US where it now earns a fifth of sales, and is eyeing a 2026 IPO despite still being loss-making.

🤔 Chai Break Trivia

📊 Did you know September 2025 is shaping up to be India’s busiest IPO month in nearly three decades, with over two dozen companies set to list. The last time the Street saw such a frenzy was in 1997.

🔮 What’s Brewing Next

• 📈 IPO frenzy ahead: Big names like Tata Capital, NSE, Groww and PhonePe are lined up, with SEBI’s AI-based approvals making the process faster than ever.

• 🏦 Global debt watch: With world debt at pandemic-like highs, investors are bracing for turbulence in emerging markets facing record repayments this year.

And that’s your Friday brew! 🌞 From Reliance cooking up mega food parks to Starbucks closing doors, from GST easing household budgets to Simpl getting a regulatory slap — the week has been nothing short of packed. Take a long sip, put your feet up, and let the weekend steep. See you Monday with more masala. ✨☕