‘Quicklend’-ing in 30 mins; Measure carbon footprint with ease

Hello,

OYO made big bucks in FY25.

In Q3, the Ritesh Agarwal-founded travel tech unicorn recorded a profit after tax of Rs 166 crore—up nearly six times from Rs 25 crore in the year-ago period. 

In fact, OYO saw its revenue grow almost 31% to Rs 1,695 crore from Rs 1,296 crore a year earlier, marking a turnaround from the flat topline growth seen in FY24.

The company is also actively pursuing the premiumisation of its UK portfolio through a multi-pronged approach. OYO is planning to invest 50 million pounds in the UK over the next three years to expand its premium hotel portfolio, shifting its focus towards acquiring premium inventory and emphasising long-term leasehold and management contracts. 

Meanwhile, Big Tech said ‘Let the money flow’.

While Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft funnelled billions of dollars into AI last year to try and keep up with unfettered demand, the hype isn’t dying down in 2025.

Now, these giants intend to spend as much as $320 billion combined on AI technologies and data centre buildouts in 2025—that’s up from $230 billion in total capital expenditures in AI in 2024!

ICYMI: The wild world of meme coins.

Now, before you get any Monday blues, we have the solution ready to make it go away—meet the stars of Puppy Bowl XXI!

Sending pawsitve vibes only!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Enabling loans in 30 mins
• Measure carbon footprint with ease

Here’s your trivia for today: What is the world’s most populous island?

Startup

Enabling loans in 30 mins

Credit is the lifeline of any economy, and a service that enables people to borrow money at competitive interest rates with minimal paperwork offers a compelling business model. This idea inspired three entrepreneurs with strong technology and finance expertise to launch a startup that allows individuals to secure loans against their mutual funds (MF) through the digital platform.

Bengaluru-based fintech startup Quicklend was founded by Raghuram Tirkutam, Arun Jadhav, and Abhishek Uppala in December 2023. The company aims to offer a seamless platform where users can secure a loan against their mutual funds in just 30 minutes.

Easy money:

• Quicklend facilitates the entire loan process for customers using its MF holdings. It has partnered with MF distributors and other fintech firms to identify potential customers. It then connects them to financial institutions offering loans.
• The platform provides loans ranging from Rs 25,000 to Rs 3 lakh and allows customers to borrow up to 50% of their MF holdings. At present, it is enabling customers to avail loans up to Rs 1 crore, and the platform is even attracting companies seeking credit solutions.
• The fintech startup raised a pre-seed funding of Rs 7 crore from venture capital firms such as Upsparks, Eximius Ventures, and Inuka Capital, as well as angel investors.

Startup

Measure carbon footprint with ease

For companies with complex global supply chains involving numerous suppliers, tracking the environmental and social impact of their operations can be an overwhelming task—especially if they have limited visibility of the practices of suppliers who may not track their environmental footprint or lack the resources to do so. 

Given that consumers increasingly prefer brands that demonstrate strong sustainability commitments, companies that fail to track their operations are at risk of losing market share and credibility. This is where Sprih steps in with its carbon emission audit platform.

Key takeaways:

• Founded in 2022 by Akash Keshav, Ravi Singhal, Rohit Toshniwal, and Hemant Joshi, the startup helps enterprises streamline their decarbonisation efforts by simplifying measurement, benchmarking, and reporting of emissions across various scopes. 
• Sprih offers a software solution that measures and benchmarks key sustainability metrics and provides actionable insights to enhance the overall sustainability and compliance among organisations. The metrics include carbon emissions (Scope 1, 2, 3), energy use, waste, water consumption, and sustainable sourcing.
• Currently, Sprih has over 20 customers in India and the US. Its clients include Indigo Paints, Automotive Stampings and Assemblies Limited, Thermax, Krsnaa Diagnostics, and InfoBeans. 

News & updates

• No buy: Elon Musk said he was not interested in purchasing TikTok, which the US has been trying to ban over national security concerns. Musk's comments, made in late January, were released online by The WELT Group, which hosted a summit, where Musk joined the conference via video.
• Maths: In a newly published study, AlphaGeometry2, an AI system developed by Google DeepMind, appears to have solved 84% of all geometry problems over the last 25 years in the International Mathematical Olympiad—surpassing the average gold medalist. 
• Power: Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia disconnected high-voltage power lines linking them to Russia and Belarus on Saturday. Their grid then operated autonomously for a day before connecting to the European grid via Poland on Sunday, securing long-sought energy independence from Moscow. 

What you should watch out for

• Market attention will turn towards macroeconomic indicators this week. The January CPI inflation and industrial and manufacturing production numbers will be released on February 12. The wholesale price index (WPI) inflation data will come out on February 14.
• The December quarter earnings season will end in the coming week, with over 2,000 companies, including Nykaa parent FSN E-Commerce Ventures and Mamaearth-owner Honasa Consumer, reporting their quarterly earnings.

What is the world’s most populous island?

Answer: Java, Indonesia. As of January 2025, its population was 153.8 million people.

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