 Daily Top 5 |
PB Fintech, Delhivery improve Q2 profits; Binance's $6.3 billion caper
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PB Fintech on Friday reported a strong jump in profit and revenue for the July-September quarter. This and more in today’s ETtech Top 5.
Also in the letter:
■ AI detects security flaws
■ Why Big Tech shares are tanking
■ Sebi greenlights Atomberg IPO
PB Fintech group CEO Yashish Dahiya
PB Fintech, the parent company of Policybazaar and Paisabazaar, reported a strong increase in consolidated net profit in the September quarter on the back of strong growth in its core insurance marketplace and higher renewal income.
Financials:
Double click: The growth was led by Policybazaar's insurance distribution business, where demand for health and term insurance remained strong. Total insurance premiums rose 38% to Rs 9,385 crore, with new protection premiums increasing 42%. New health insurance premiums grew 46% year-on-year.
Delhivery CEO Sahil Barua
New-age logistics company Delhivery reported a jump in its operating revenue for the September quarter led by growth in its transport services business.
Financials:
Quote, unquote: “Express volumes grew 32% YoY in Q2FY27 and 43% YoY in H1FY27, reflecting continued market share gains and the strength of our value proposition across a broad and diversified customer base. While it remains early to comment on the remainder of Q3FY27, October volumes have exceeded our initial expectations, providing an encouraging start to Q3,” the company said in its letter to the shareholders.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance reported a security breach with an estimated impact of $6.3 billion on Friday, with an initial investigation pointing to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop that let an attacker submit unauthorised withdrawal transactions.
What happened: TRM Labs, a California-based AI investigations firm, attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean state-sponsored hacking unit.
“An attacker moved approximately $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains, most of it in about 20 minutes,” it said in a blog post, adding that the attribution was made “with high confidence” based on on- and off-chain intelligence.
Response and recovery: Binance froze nearly $3 billion worth of affected assets with the help of blockchain partners, temporarily halted all deposits and withdrawals, revoked authorisation for the affected address, and brought in law enforcement and blockchain intelligence experts to trace the stolen funds.
More action: The incident prompted swift action across the industry. Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle said they froze nearly $1.57 billion and more than $800 million in linked assets, respectively.
Polymarket temporarily halted trading on its international platform Thursday because of a security incident that compromised a third-party provider.
What happened: The prediction market platform said it halted trading "out of an abundance of caution" after identifying and fixing the issue affecting its international platform.
"We'll make this right and are fully reimbursing all affected traders," the company posted on X once trading had resumed.
Artificial intelligence (AI) models have helped flag more than 14,000 previously undetected vulnerabilities in open-source software, matching a full year of manual penetration testing in just three weeks, global cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks told ET.
Driving the news: “The important shift is the amount of the workflow AI can now perform itself. What concerns us most is not one particular exploit, but that combination of autonomy, speed and scale”, said Huzefa Motiwala, senior director for technical solutions, India and SAARC, Palo Alto Networks.
The tests showed frontier models could identify vulnerabilities, reason across multiple weaknesses, chain them into potential attack paths, and even reverse-engineer software and develop exploitation methods with less researcher guidance.
For instance:
Defence speeding up: AI is accelerating defensive work as well. Shane Huntley, chief technology officer at Google Threat Intelligence Group, said Google could investigate “an incident in six minutes, a task that would otherwise take hours to piece together manually.”
Shares of US technology giants Alphabet, Amazon, and Intel came under heavy selling pressure on Thursday, plunging up to 23% in extended trading as investors grew increasingly worried about rising AI spending and weakening cash flows.
Alphabet’s worst day: Alphabet shares fell more than 13% — their worst single-day performance — wiping out half a trillion dollars in market capitalisation. The sell-off followed third-quarter results that missed Wall Street expectations, with slowing growth in core search advertising and elevated AI capex adding to concerns.
Amazon’s cash drain: Amazon shares fell more than 4% after the company reported weaker-than-expected third-quarter results. Amazon reported negative free cash flow for the second consecutive quarter, with the trailing 12-month outflow reaching $42.4 billion.
Intel’s weak outlook: Intel shares plunged more than 23% in extended trading after a weak fourth-quarter forecast, citing continued weakness in the global PC market.
Shibam Das (left) and Manoj Meena, founders, Atomberg
Consumer appliances maker Atomberg Technologies has received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for its proposed initial public offering (IPO).
The details: The offering comprises a fresh issue of shares worth up to Rs 450 crore and an offer for sale of 76.5 million shares by existing investors.
Background: The Mumbai-based company filed its draft IPO papers in August. ET had reported in July that Atomberg was preparing for an offering of Rs 1,500-2,000 crore; the final issue size will depend on the price band, which has not yet been announced.
Also in the letter:
■ AI detects security flaws
■ Why Big Tech shares are tanking
■ Sebi greenlights Atomberg IPO
PB Fintech Q2 net profit rises 43% to Rs 192 crore; revenue grows 35%
PB Fintech, the parent company of Policybazaar and Paisabazaar, reported a strong increase in consolidated net profit in the September quarter on the back of strong growth in its core insurance marketplace and higher renewal income.
Financials:
- Net profit: Rs 192.39 crore versus Rs 134.89 crore a year earlier.
- Revenue from operations: Grew 35% to Rs 2,177.71 crore from Rs 1,613.55 crore a year earlier.
- Revenue from core online businesses: Up 39% to Rs 1,336 crore.
- Insurance revenue: Up 42% to Rs 1,211 crore.
- Credit revenue: Up 19% to Rs 125 crore.
Double click: The growth was led by Policybazaar's insurance distribution business, where demand for health and term insurance remained strong. Total insurance premiums rose 38% to Rs 9,385 crore, with new protection premiums increasing 42%. New health insurance premiums grew 46% year-on-year.
Delhivery’s Q2 revenue grows 20%; bottomline swings to profitability
New-age logistics company Delhivery reported a jump in its operating revenue for the September quarter led by growth in its transport services business.
Financials:
- Operating revenue: Up 20% year-on-year increase at Rs 3,066 crore.
- Net profit: Rs 41 crore, compared to a Rs 50 crore net loss in the same quarter last year.
- Ecommerce shipment business: Grew 32% year-on-year in volume and 22% in revenue.
Quote, unquote: “Express volumes grew 32% YoY in Q2FY27 and 43% YoY in H1FY27, reflecting continued market share gains and the strength of our value proposition across a broad and diversified customer base. While it remains early to comment on the remainder of Q3FY27, October volumes have exceeded our initial expectations, providing an encouraging start to Q3,” the company said in its letter to the shareholders.
Binance hit by $6.3 billion crypto hack: Here’s what you need to know
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance reported a security breach with an estimated impact of $6.3 billion on Friday, with an initial investigation pointing to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop that let an attacker submit unauthorised withdrawal transactions.
What happened: TRM Labs, a California-based AI investigations firm, attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean state-sponsored hacking unit.
“An attacker moved approximately $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains, most of it in about 20 minutes,” it said in a blog post, adding that the attribution was made “with high confidence” based on on- and off-chain intelligence.
Response and recovery: Binance froze nearly $3 billion worth of affected assets with the help of blockchain partners, temporarily halted all deposits and withdrawals, revoked authorisation for the affected address, and brought in law enforcement and blockchain intelligence experts to trace the stolen funds.
More action: The incident prompted swift action across the industry. Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle said they froze nearly $1.57 billion and more than $800 million in linked assets, respectively.
Polymarket paused international trading after a security issue involving a third-party provider
Polymarket temporarily halted trading on its international platform Thursday because of a security incident that compromised a third-party provider.
What happened: The prediction market platform said it halted trading "out of an abundance of caution" after identifying and fixing the issue affecting its international platform.
"We'll make this right and are fully reimbursing all affected traders," the company posted on X once trading had resumed.
AI detects 14,000 security flaws in 3 weeks, a year’s work manually
Artificial intelligence (AI) models have helped flag more than 14,000 previously undetected vulnerabilities in open-source software, matching a full year of manual penetration testing in just three weeks, global cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks told ET.
Driving the news: “The important shift is the amount of the workflow AI can now perform itself. What concerns us most is not one particular exploit, but that combination of autonomy, speed and scale”, said Huzefa Motiwala, senior director for technical solutions, India and SAARC, Palo Alto Networks.
The tests showed frontier models could identify vulnerabilities, reason across multiple weaknesses, chain them into potential attack paths, and even reverse-engineer software and develop exploitation methods with less researcher guidance.
For instance:
- Google Cloud’s Mandiant team said its AI-assisted system had identified more than 100 confirmed critical vulnerabilities in two days in August.
- CrowdStrike found cyber adversaries had listed 455 law firms on sites that publish hacked material — a 39% on-year rise. The listings are tied to “big game hunting” groups, which typically target large organisations for extortion.
Defence speeding up: AI is accelerating defensive work as well. Shane Huntley, chief technology officer at Google Threat Intelligence Group, said Google could investigate “an incident in six minutes, a task that would otherwise take hours to piece together manually.”
Explained: Why AI giants Google, Amazon, Intel shares crashed up to 23% in a day
Shares of US technology giants Alphabet, Amazon, and Intel came under heavy selling pressure on Thursday, plunging up to 23% in extended trading as investors grew increasingly worried about rising AI spending and weakening cash flows.
Alphabet’s worst day: Alphabet shares fell more than 13% — their worst single-day performance — wiping out half a trillion dollars in market capitalisation. The sell-off followed third-quarter results that missed Wall Street expectations, with slowing growth in core search advertising and elevated AI capex adding to concerns.
Amazon’s cash drain: Amazon shares fell more than 4% after the company reported weaker-than-expected third-quarter results. Amazon reported negative free cash flow for the second consecutive quarter, with the trailing 12-month outflow reaching $42.4 billion.
Intel’s weak outlook: Intel shares plunged more than 23% in extended trading after a weak fourth-quarter forecast, citing continued weakness in the global PC market.
Atomberg gets Sebi nod for IPO, plans Rs 450-crore fresh issue
Consumer appliances maker Atomberg Technologies has received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for its proposed initial public offering (IPO).
The details: The offering comprises a fresh issue of shares worth up to Rs 450 crore and an offer for sale of 76.5 million shares by existing investors.
- A91 Partners is the largest selling shareholder, offering about 37.7 million shares.
- Temasek plans to sell about 12.2 million shares, while Jungle Ventures will offer nearly 10 million.
- The founders are not selling.
Background: The Mumbai-based company filed its draft IPO papers in August. ET had reported in July that Atomberg was preparing for an offering of Rs 1,500-2,000 crore; the final issue size will depend on the price band, which has not yet been announced.
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