🛠️ Zerodha Levels Up While 11x Melts Down

☀️ Good Morning, Masala Tribe!

It’s Wednesday, and if you're feeling like the week’s dragging, we’ve brewed up your midweek motivation in a cup of spiced headlines.

From VC drama in Silicon Valley to women dominating SIPs, and tax tiffs heating up, there’s plenty to sip on today. Let’s dive in 🍵

🫖 Chai Shots

• 💸 Women Rule the SIP Scene: The number of women investors with SIP accounts jumped nearly 4x in just four years — from 71 lakh in 2020 to 2.63 crore by the end of 2024. And guess what? Most of this growth came from smaller cities, not the metros. Ladies, the D-Street domination is real.

• 🏥 Taxman Knocks on IOB’s Door: Indian Overseas Bank has received a Rs 559 crore demand notice from the income tax department. IOB says it’s confident the demand won’t hold and is already prepping an appeal.

• 🔧 Zerodha Gets a Toolkit Upgrade: Kite users, rejoice! Zerodha rolled out six new features, including order slicing (bye-bye big order limits), available margin display, and a slick new basket icon for multiple trades. Traders can now execute with more ease and fewer clicks.

• 🚗 PhonePe Zooms into Vehicle Insurance: Walmart-backed PhonePe is expanding its insurance portfolio to cover two-wheelers and four-wheelers. It's aiming to outprice traditional dealership insurance and grab a bigger bite of India’s growing digital insurance pie.

• 🧃 AI startup 11x accused of faking it till it breaks – Andreessen Horowitz and Benchmark-backed 11x is in hot water for allegedly inflating revenue and listing fake customers like ZoomInfo and Airtable. More on this steaming mess in The Big Brew ☕👇

📈 Market Masala

• 📊 Flat but Feisty: Indian markets ended the day almost unchanged. Sensex added just 32 points, while Nifty held firm at 23,668. Gains in HDFC Bank and IT stocks were offset by slides in Reliance and ICICI Bank.

• 🏦 PSU Bank Sell-Off: Shares of PSU banks like Central Bank, IOB, and UCO Bank dropped 3–5%, dragging the Nifty PSU Bank index down 1.7%.

• 🧱 Cement Stocks Rally: A positive UBS upgrade sparked investor interest in cement stocks. Ultratech Cement surged 3.5%, with ACC and Ambuja close behind.

• 🌐 FIIs Turn Buyers Again: Foreign investors snapped up Rs 3,055 crore worth of Indian equities — marking their third straight session of net buying.

• 💰 Rupee Pauses After 9-Day Run: The INR ended at 85.75/USD, down slightly after nine days of gains. Importer demand and regional currency weakness nudged it lower.

• 📉 WeWork India IPO on Ice: Sebi has hit pause on WeWork India’s IPO, adding another twist to the flexible workspace player’s rocky road. The company had planned a 4.3 crore share OFS — but for now, the listing is in limbo.

• 🧑‍⚖️ Axis AMC Pays Up: Axis AMC, its former CEO, and other top execs have paid Rs 6.27 crore to SEBI to settle a front-running scandal. Dealers were found jumping the queue ahead of fund trades — a big no-no in market land.

🌍 Global Masala

• 📊 Wall Street Squeezes Out Gains: The S&P 500 inched up 0.16% on Tuesday, marking its third straight winning session. Investor nerves calmed after Trump signaled that his April 2 reciprocal tariffs might spare some countries. But a 12-year low in consumer confidence is raising eyebrows. Keep an eye on this week’s GDP and inflation data — markets are hoping for more reassurance.

• 🚗 Tesla Hits a Speed Bump in Europe: Tesla’s sales plunged 49% in the EU in early 2025, even as overall EV sales jumped 28%. The blame? Outdated models, growing competition, and Elon Musk’s far-right political associations in Germany.

• 🛢️ Trading Titans Eye Russia... Again?: CEOs of energy giants like Gunvor and Mercuria say they'd return to doing business in Russia if sanctions are lifted. But execs at the FT Commodities Summit admitted it’s not happening anytime soon.

• 🏦 Santander Hits €100B Milestone: Spanish banking behemoth Banco Santander became the first EU-based bank in nearly a decade to cross the €100 billion market cap mark. Rising interest rates and chunky dividends have turned EU banks into investor darlings.

• 💎 SAP Becomes Europe’s Most Valuable Company: Germany’s software powerhouse SAP just dethroned Novo Nordisk, riding on an AI boom and a DAX market rally.

☕ The Big Brew 💰 VC-Backed 11x Is Getting Burned for Faking Customers and Massaging Metrics

It had all the makings of an AI fairy tale: backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Benchmark, 11x claimed it was reinventing sales with its AI SDR bot — helping companies book meetings and close deals on autopilot.

But a new TechCrunch exposé reveals a mess behind the scenes — from fake customer logos and creative ARR math, to meltdown-level churn and a toxic workplace.

• 🧠 ZoomInfo & Airtable Call Foul: Both companies say they never became paying customers — yet 11x plastered their logos on its website and kept pitching them as clients. ZoomInfo even threatened legal action.

• 💰 ARR? Or Just PR?: 11x allegedly counted full-year revenue from customers who signed contracts with easy opt-out clauses — even if they churned after 3 months. Internally, ex-employees say real ARR was a fraction of the public number.

• 🤖 Product Problems: Users say the AI "hallucinated" results, crashed often, and delivered far fewer leads than promised. One company got billed twice. Others said it was worse than human SDRs.

• 🔥 Founder Fatigue: Inside the company, ex-staffers paint a picture of long hours, public Slack shaming, and Slack messages from CEO Hasan Sukkar at 3 a.m. Some even say they had to wait for payday before quitting — just to ensure they’d actually get paid.

• 🤔 What does this mean? In an AI startup gold rush, vanity metrics and vaporware are proving to be dangerous — for customers, employees, and even VCs. It's a reminder: growth hacks and hustle only take you so far when the product doesn’t deliver.

🚀 Startup Scoop

• 🌾 Grow Indigo Bags $10M: Agritech startup Grow Indigo raised $10 million from British International Investment to scale sustainable farming techniques like no-till and direct-seeded rice. It already spans 2.5M+ acres across 7 states and partners with brands on greener supply chains.

• 🏥 Dozee Monitors Global Growth: Healthtech startup Dozee raised $8.3M to ramp up its contactless patient monitoring biz. It’s expanding to the U.S., UAE, and Africa after doubling revenue and slashing losses. The goal: real-time vitals, early warnings, and hospital discharges in 30 minutes.

• 🔍 Irame.ai Raises $1M for AI Audits: Audit intelligence startup Irame.ai raised $1M from SenseAI Ventures to turbocharge automated compliance. It promises to deliver 3-4x faster audits with less cost and more accuracy.

• 💎 Firefly Diamonds Shines Bright: Lab-grown diamond brand Firefly raised $3M from WestBridge Capital. With plans to expand from 4 to 20 cities in two years, it's looking to outshine rivals like COLUXE and Fiona in the sustainable bling market.

• 🏥 Care.fi Picks Up Rs 7.5 Cr: Revenue cycle management startup Care.fi secured debt funding from Vivriti Capital to scale its claims processing platform RevNow, which is already managing ₹800 crore+ in hospital claims.

• 🌰 Gramiyaa Gets Cooking with Rs 7.2 Cr: Cold-pressed oil brand Gramiyaa raised funds to boost capacity to 4 lakh litres/month, strengthen sourcing, and grow its D2C and retail footprint. The Tamil Nadu brand is betting big on healthy oils with heritage extraction.

🔮 What’s Brewing Next?

• 📦 US Tariffs Go Live (Maybe?): Trump's April 2 reciprocal tariffs are the big macro event to watch. While he hinted that some countries might get a free pass, pharma, autos, and aluminum are still on the hit list. Expect markets to stay jumpy.

From AI startups getting caught in their own sales spin to Zerodha making trading smoother than a Mumbai monsoon chai, and IPO dreams getting iced, this week had no shortage of twists.

Until tomorrow, keep your chai hot and your startup drama hotter 🔥