Daybreak

The consumer-robotics graveyard is littered with well-funded American startups. Moxie, Jibo, Anki—all raised millions, then collapsed under cloud costs and thin margins.

Enter Miko, a Mumbai company selling AI companions to American kids. With Indian manufacturing cutting costs to one-fifth of US production and subscriptions driving recurring revenue, Miko has advantages its rivals never had. Yet it's still losing money—120 crore rupees last year. Now, as the company hits 500,000 units in annual sales, it's reaching the exact scale where others stumbled.

Can Miko's India edge break the robotics curse, or will it become just another cautionary tale?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Uttar Pradesh now makes more than half the smartphones produced in India. Big electronics companies have set up factories in and around Noida. A place once known for small industries is suddenly part of a global supply chain.

In this episode, we look at how that happened. What changed after the pandemic. Why policy, infrastructure and geography mattered. And why almost all this growth is packed into a small belt near Delhi.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

India has the engineers, the users, and the ambition to be an AI superpower. 

But as OpenAI floods the market at ₹399/month, Google invests $15 billion, and global giants harvest Indian data, a critical question emerges: Will India settle for being the world's largest AI user, or can it become a builder that matters?

From DeepSeek's $6M shock to the race for AI sovereignty, we connect the dots on India's AI moment—and what could be next.

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Episodes mentioned: 

1. Deepseek: Spotify | Apple | Youtube 
2. ChatGPT 399 Plan: Spotify | Apple | Youtube
3. India's Sovereign AI: Spotify | Apple | Youtube
4. Deloitte's AI blunder: Spotify | Apple | Youtube
5. AI Browsers: Spotify | Apple | Youtube
6. Why AI minds are refusing big bucks: Spotify | Apple | Youtube
7. Call Centres are being rewritten by AI: Spotify | Apple | Youtube

Write to us with your thoughts at [email protected]! 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The Indian government is losing patience with consumer-tech platforms using dark patterns or manipulative design tricks.

In late May 2024, Consumer Affairs Minister, Pralhad Joshi, gathered the country’s biggest internet companies, Amazon, Google, Zomato, Ola Electric, etc to give them an ultimatum: clean up your user interfaces by September 5 or face the consequences.

From hidden fees on Amazon to guilt-inducing pop-ups on Indigo, these tactics push users into spending more money, sharing more data, or giving up more control, often without realising it.

And they’re deeply baked into how these companies grow, making them hard to remove without hurting the bottom line.

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**This episode was first published on 11 August, 2025

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Youtube launched Shopping in India in October 2024, and within a year, 40% of eligible creators adopted it. The platform is betting on high-intent audiences who research before buying—unlike Instagram's impulse-driven model.

By building shopping infrastructure in-house and partnering with Flipkart and Myntra, Youtube offers creators high commissions.

The shift is democratizing income for micro-creators, while affiliate GMV exploded from Rs 10 crore to Rs 300 crore in two years.
Youtube isn't trying to beat Instagram at its game—it's doubling down on what it does best.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In this episode we fill you in on three standout stories from the past week.

First, a deeper look at this year's latest Wealth Inequality Report;

Next, what the Netflix-Paramount fight for Warner Brothers means for Indian players;

And finally, why and how Indigo has started to behave.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Lenskart is now a public company, and its first real market test just arrived. The shares fell a little over 3% on December 8 as the shareholder lock-in expired, putting the company back in the news and making it a good moment to revisit how it got here. 

Lenskart ended FY25 with a ₹297 crore in profit and nearly 40 % of that now comes from its 656 stores outside India. That global reach is unusual for an Indian consumer brand, especially when others like Zomato and Ola struggled overseas.

The company’s steady expansion strategy has leaned on selective acquisitions, investments and joint ventures. And its real strength is a vertically integrated supply chain that keeps prices tight, speeds up product launches and maintains consistency across markets.

With the stock settling into life post-listing, today, we look back at what built Lenskart’s momentum.

**This episode was first published on Aug 25, 2025

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

India's Atal Incubation Centres promised to be the backbone of government innovation. With 500 crore rupees in initial funding and support from Niti Aayog, these 72 centres were supposed to nurture startups with grants, mentors, and infrastructure.

Nearly a decade later, the results are sobering. Of 3,500 incubated startups, fewer than 5% have raised external capital. Most centres lack basic websites or outcome metrics. No external audits. No unicorns.

Now the government wants to double down—allocating 2,750 crore rupees to expand the ecosystem. But nobody seems to care if the existing network actually works.

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Yesterday, the Economic Times reported that JioStar has told the ICC it wants to exit its India media rights deal for cricket events, even with two years still left in the cycle. The company also doubled its provisions for expected losses suggesting the rights may cost more to deliver than they can earn back.

It all started in late 2024 when Jio came in and flipped the script by streaming cricket tournaments for free and leaning towards a more ad-heavy model. For viewers, it felt like progress. But now with the drop in ad spending from online money gaming platforms after new regulations, Jio is feeling the squeeze.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Manoj Kumar Tiwari had a tough job: transform the Tata Institute of Social Sciences into something that looks more like a management school. 

In his two year term? Mission accomplished.

TISS now uses the same entrance exam as IIMs. It's hiring faculty from business schools instead of NGOs. Management courses are in, social science programs are struggling to fill seats. Over 100 staff were laid off in 2024.

This isn't just about TISS. It's part of a larger pattern where institutions like JNU and IRMA are sacrificing arts and humanities for what the "market" wants. The government's 2020 education policy is pushing universities toward self-sufficiency—which means more management, and less social work.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.