Morning Dispatch

Swiggy narrows loss in Q2; eMudhra cofounder on what went wrong


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Happy Friday! Swiggy reported a rise in revenue in Q2 FY27 while cutting its losses. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.

Also in the letter:
■ Healthcare GCCs seek AI talent
■ ETtech Done Deals
■ Ola Electric rights issue


Swiggy Q2 revenue jumps 36%; loss narrows to Rs 922 crore


Sriharsha Majety
Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy

Swiggy reported a 36% year-on-year increase in operating revenue to Rs 7,571 crore for July-September on Thursday. The food and grocery delivery company’s net loss narrowed 16% to Rs 922 crore from Rs 1,092 crore in the year-ago period.

Financials:

  • Adjusted Ebitda loss widened to Rs 760 crore from Rs 695 crore a year earlier.
  • Adjusted revenue rose 34% to Rs 7,909 crore.
  • Consumer-facing businesses’ combined GOV grew 24.6% on-year to Rs 20,793 crore.
Instamart growth:

  • GOV: Up 31% YoY to Rs 9,230 crore during the September quarter, compared with Rs 7,022 crore a year earlier.
  • Net order value (NOV): Increased 33% YoY to Rs 6,553 crore.
  • Adjusted Ebitda loss: Widened to Rs 895 crore from Rs 849 crore a year earlier.
  • Adjusted Ebitda margin: Improved to -9.7% of GOV from -12.1% a year earlier.
Shift to inventory model: The Bengaluru-based company will begin transitioning Instamart to an inventory model from the current marketplace model in the middle of the ongoing third quarter, a move that could improve its contribution margin by around 80 basis points once fully implemented.

Eternal vs Swiggy Q2FY27 _GFX

Quick commerce competition: Instamart’s GOV increased 31.4% year-on-year to Rs 9,230 crore in the September quarter, while net order value rose 33% to Rs 6,553 crore. It added 69 dark stores, expanding its network to 1,240 stores.

Majety acknowledged Blinkit’s stronger flywheel but said Swiggy’s first job is to build a stable, resilient business with a clear path to Ebitda zero.


April 2025 script error left eMudhra keys exposed to AI: cofounder Kaushik Srinivasan


Kaushik Srinivasan Cofounder, eMudhra
Kaushik Srinivasan, cofounder, eMudhra

eMudhra cofounder Kaushik Srinivasan defended the incident that made headlines globally on Wednesday and led the Indian government to form a committee to investigate.

A technical fault – a script error during the wrap-unwrap process – resulted in a weak key that could potentially have been reverse engineered using modern AI tools, he told ET in an interaction.

What went wrong: “It was just a bad day. This can happen to anybody,” Srinivasan said, maintaining the incident did not involve a breach of the company’s infrastructure. The flaw occurred during a key-generation exercise in April 2025, when an error in an additional wrap-unwrap step for keys intended for international operations produced weak keys alongside the intended strong ones.

What happened: There was a security incident involving eight intermediate digital certificates under eMudhra's global Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). The issue surfaced on October 17 after a researcher flagged vulnerable private keys to Google and other technology companies, prompting Google and Mozilla to block the affected certificates.

What next: eMudhra’s board has decided to voluntarily withdraw from the global SSL/TLS certificate business. The company said affected certificate authorities were revoked within 14 hours of discovery, and no end-entity certificates had been issued through them.

Verbatim: “We plan to introduce more stringent oversight of key-generation ceremonies, additional maker-checker controls and artificial intelligence tools to automatically verify key strength,” Srinivasan said.


Healthcare GCCs dangle hefty pay premiums to bridge AI talent gap


global capability centre in Bengaluru gcc ETTECH

Global capability centres (GCCs) in India’s healthcare sector are struggling to find specialised artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) talent.

Driving the news: This is forcing companies to pay up to 2.5 times the overall median salary and wait as long as 90 days to fill senior AI vacancies, according to staffing firm Quess Corp.

  • Data, analytics and AI have just 1.6 professionals for every projected opening in India’s healthcare GCCs, compared with 4.8 across roles overall.
  • As a result, senior AI leadership positions, including data science managers and AI product managers, command 6.5-8 times the overall median salaries.
  • India’s healthcare GCCs are projected to generate 67,000 job openings in 2026.
Salary premiums by seniority: The salary premium rises sharply with seniority. Among professionals with three to seven years of experience, AI and ML specialists earn 105% more than the median for their experience group, while data professionals in the same bracket earn a 44% premium.

Also Read: Software majors add more hands in Q2 on deal wins, growth optimism


Other Top Stories By Our Reporters


amaha
Amit Malik, founder and CEO, Amaha

Amaha raises funds: Mental healthcare provider Amaha is raising Rs 100 crore, including Rs 10 crore in debt, from existing investors Lightbox Ventures and Fireside Ventures, alongside London-based life skills platform Sandbox International Holdings and Nithin Kamath’s Rainmatter.

Chapter Home raises funds: Chapter Home, a home and kitchen products startup founded by former executives at online drugstore PharmEasy, has raised Rs 63 crore in a mix of equity and debt from Bessemer Venture Partners, venture debt firm Stride Ventures, comedian Tanmay Bhat and a group of family offices. The round valued the company at close to Rs 1,000 crore.

Ola Electric rights issue: Motilal Oswal Financial Services and Calliope Capital Advisors, an investment vehicle associated with Motilal Oswal, have applied for a combined 2.39 crore shares under Ola Electric Mobility’s Rs 1,000-crore rights issue on the opening day on Thursday.


Global Picks We Are Reading


■ Who’s paying for the AI build-out? Probably you (FT)

■ Hugging Face’s new AI model lets you chat with DNA (Wired)

■ Big Tech’s thirst for water is sparking a global resistance (Rest of World)

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