Daybreak

Cloud, streaming, generative AI… while all of these are increasingly becoming hot topics of discussion, data centres—the large, boxy buildings that house high-powered computers—are looking for innovative solutions to stay cool.

The advent of GPU processing has opened an opportunity for a handful of foreign companies to throw their hat into the ring. Their proposition? Liquid cooling. 

So far, air cooling has been the preferred way to keep data centres cool. Like its name suggests, it is the process of using air to keep these centres cool. Liquid cooling does just that but with water. 

It’s more efficient and largely believed to be a better way of cooling. But change does not come easy. Many data centre operators here in India believe it is riskier than air cooling. But with AI technology advancing the way that it is and GPUs growing more popular, they may soon not have a choice. 

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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.

Hurun India began curating rich lists a decade ago. Now, it has moved up ahead of ranking giants like Bloomberg and Forbes with 17 lists so far. It has a Global 500 list, similar to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. In fact, at this point, its safe to say that it has replaced Forbes as the most trusted choice for bankers and wealth managers.  Hurun has managed to turn showing it off into a cultural trend despite the fact that wealth is often wrapped in secrecy in a country like India. So what's really driving India's obsession with ranking the richest?

Hurun India has grown way beyond its original rich lists, creating rankings for just about everything you can think of—from self-made entrepreneurs to top art collectors. They even track billionaires by zodiac signs. 

Today we look at Hurun India beyond just these lists— a closer look at the behind the scenes relationship it has with wealth-management firms, and how it keeps the ultra-rich happy

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!

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.

Last Sunday, the Daybreak team joined a run club! Why, you ask? For research, of course.

We wanted to understand the recent run club renaissance, that has taken social media by storm since the beginning of the year. Run clubs, in the traditional sense, have been around for decades now. But now, something has shifted. The new generation of runners is younger, less experienced, and relentlessly social.

Young people are looking for new avenues to meet people in real life and to connect offline. This isn't just limited to running. Social clubs in general are really having their moment. These are clubs that are centred around an activity — like hiking, painting, reading, even knitting. In search of meaningful relationships, sometimes even love, they are putting down their phones and pursuing hobbies like never before.

But what led to this sudden resurgence of social clubs? Was it the pandemic? Loneliness? Social media fatigue? Or something else entirely?

Tune in to find out.

Special thank you to the 56 Run Club for collaborating with us for this episode. You can follow them on Instagram to get the latest updates on their runs and events.

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!

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.

On November 13, food delivery giant Swiggy made its public debut. It listed with a 8% premium over its IPO price of Rs 390 on NSE at Rs 420 and was oversubscribed by nearly four times. 

While it's a bit early to comment, investors are not making strong bets on it yet. Hust to give you context, when Zomato went public, its IPO was oversubscribed by 38 times. This could be because the company is still posting losses on a consolidated level and is expected to be 2-3 years away from reaching profitability. It took Swiggy nine years till its food delivery business finally turned profitable last year.

Today, we revisit an episode of Daybreak in which we’d talked about what was happening behind the scenes of Swiggy’s IPO preparation.

Tune in.

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!

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.

For quite a while now, the Indian startup ecosystem has really been feeling the pinch. People in the know call it the funding winter. These are periods of tremendous financial insecurity for startups, particularly now. 

You see, for the last five years ago, the startup funding culture here in India was like a rollercoaster that was only going up. But now the scenario has changed considerably. After a dream run, big-ticket equity funding has slowed down and once sky high valuations are very quickly coming back to Earth. 

These startups still need the money, obviously. But they have realised that raising a round of funding may not be as easy as it once was. 

But they have found their knight in shining armour. In comes ‘venture debt’. These are essentially loans that go to VC-backed startups. A lot of the startups in the Indian ecosystem are thirsty, and venture debt is increasingly proving to be the refreshing splash they needed amid this funding drought.

But there's a catch. 

Tune in.  

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.

Last year, Nykaa decided to reshuffle its marketing structure after the company’s previous Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) exited the company.  

Instead of immediately filling the spot, Nykaa decided to break the role apart and have two marketing heads. One to look at performance marketing – the more technically, data-driven side of e-commerce, and another as the head of organic marketing – the creative, freewheeling stuff. 

The move sent out a clear message: a singular CMO is no longer necessary. 

This isn’t exclusive to Nykaa. Several online-first companies – Firstcry, Ixigo, Yatra – have been running without a CMO. But for decades CMOs have been seen as the charming, confident face of the company responsible for all things brand-building. 

What's changed? 

Tune in.

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.

Last month, in October 2024, the government of India launched the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, a health insurance coverage for all senior citizens aged 70 and over, regardless of income. This is big news for healthcare in India because for the longest time, this is exactly the age group that has pvt insurance companies have been ignoring.

To give you a clearer picture, a person aged over 60 years pays anything between Rs 30,000–50,000  as annual premium for coverage as low as 5 lakh rupees. Even policies for Rs 6–10 lakh are harder to find and cost Rs 40,000–70,000 annually. That’s about 5X the premium someone younger would pay for the same coverage. And it’s not just the high premiums; these policies are of little help to seniors when they need it the most.

In fact,  more than four out of every five people aged above 60 aren’t covered by any insurance at all. Only 20% of those over 45 years have a health cover. And the rest are just out there vulnerable to emergencies. The reason being: high premiums and meagre coverage.

Tune in.

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!

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.

Ever since the pandemic, the world of skincare has witnessed nothing short of a revolution. Almost overnight, that jar of Ponds cold cream that had stood the test of time on dressing tables across the country was replaced by elaborate six-step skincare routines.

The legacy brands we grew up with – the likes of Loreal, Ponds, Johnson and Johnson – were dethroned almost overnight. In their place came an explosion of new brands.  Today, everyone wants some skin in the game. Traditional FMCG companies like Tata, Marico, Dabur and Godrej all want in. So much so, that it's hard to keep a tab on the list of D2C skincare brands available in the market now. 

But what does it take to launch a skincare brand? Turns out, not a lot. All you need is a contract manufacturer, 30 days, and a penchant for marketing.

Tune in.

We are hosting our first live recording! If you are in your 20s, like to run or just enjoy meeting new people, sign up for The Ken X 56 Run Club. This is for our Bengaluru-based listeners only. We meet at 7:30 am near Tonique on Kasturba Gandhi road. 

Lately, new breed of millionaire heirs  have been dabbling with family offices in India . These are entities that exist solely to manage the fortunes of these ultra-rich families. While these offices have been around in some of the world’s biggest financial capitals for a long time now, in India, they are catching on now . What’s really interesting is that these single and multi family offices haven’t just been popping up in big metro cities, they are also gaining popularity in tier 2 cities like Surat, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Coimbatore and the like. 

This largely has to do with the growing number of rich people in a lot of smaller cities and towns. A byproduct of this seems to be the rise in family offices. In the last six years alone, the number of family offices in India has shot up from 45 to 300. 

Some of these function like a seed-stage venture capital firm and invest money to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Tune in.

**Correction: In this episode the host mistakenly referred to Nishant Batra as someone who leads investments at Catamaran, whereas he works for Dholakia Ventures. We apologise for the error.

Daybreak Unwind recommendations for 'favourite translated novels.'

Rahel: The Vegetarian by Han King
            Hangwoman by KR Meera

Snigdha: The Legends of Khasak by OV Vijayan
                 There's a Carnival Today by Indra Bahadur Rai

Listeners: Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbag

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!

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.

Here’s a riddle inspired by true events. We all know that pay TV subscribers have been declining for a while now. But at the same time, overall TV viewership has only been increasing. How can that be? 

Well, for that we have Youtube to thank. In the first half of 2024, Indians spent 8 trillion minutes watching videos. More than 90% of this was on Youtube. Now, generally when someone says the words ‘watch on youtube’ you imagine a mobile phone or a laptop right? That seems to be changing as a lot more people are watching Youtube videos on their TV sets. In Uttar Pradesh alone, Youtube reaches about 90 million households through connected television sets.

And here’s the surprising part. This is roughly equal to or more than the reach of television programming. 

Youtube is now entering TV territory, by luring viewers into watching new format shows. Like comedian Samay Raina’s “pointless reality show” India’s got latent. Eight episodes have been aired since June, and so far, they’ve gotten up to 4X more views than the channel’s nearly 4 million subscriber base.

Many similar Youtube channels are offering their subscribers TV like programming to keep them hooked. Plus, what makes them really stand out is that most often than not, these shows are better produced, that too on cheaper budgets.

Looks like its time for TV channels to buckle up and fight for the throne...or couch!

Tune in. 

We are hosting our first live recording! If you are in your 20s, like to run or just enjoy meeting new people, sign up for The Ken X 56 Run Club. This is for our Bengaluru-based listeners only. We meet at 7:30 am near Tonique on Kasturba Gandhi road.