The essential morning brief for Indian product builders — every number sourced and dated, every industry covered.
Product Growth Daily Brief · Presented by Arjun & Meera · About · Contact · Editorial standards
Hindi video not ready today
▶ Watch this episode — Arjun & Meera at the news desk
The single most important development for product builders today is the Union Cabinet's approval of a ₹2,814 Cr scheme to build domestic lithium and nickel processing plants, running from FY27 to FY31 and funding four facilities. For anyone building in energy, mobility or hardware, this is a signal that the supply chain behind batteries is moving from import dependence toward local processing, which will shape sourcing costs, partner options and the timelines for battery-dependent products over the next few years.
That policy thread connects to a broader pattern running through today's stories: capital and compute are being pulled into infrastructure at a scale no single startup can match. South Korea has launched Hangang, a $276 million national supercomputer with 8,496 Nvidia GPUs and 614.7 petaflops, built by its Ministry of Science and ICT. Meanwhile Goldman Sachs and Apollo Global Management are looking to sell down portions of a roughly $40 billion financing deal tied to SpaceX's AI chips, according to Bloomberg. Closer to home, Peppermint Robotics raised ₹100 Cr in a Pre-Series B led by pi Ventures and Crane Venture Partners to scale industrial cleaning robots. The lesson for builders is that the frontier is being financed by the state and by large private pools, while the startups that win will be those who turn cheap access to compute and capital into narrow, shippable products in areas like industrial automation.
The Indian platform economy gave a mixed but instructive read today. PhysicsWallah returned to profit with ₹143.6 Cr in Q2 FY27, up 106% year on year, after a loss of ₹88.3 Cr in the prior quarter, while Nykaa's consolidated net profit tripled to ₹101.2 Cr on operating revenue growth of 28.1% to ₹3,006 Cr. Both results show that the public markets are rewarding companies that have moved from growth-at-any-cost to margin discipline. Against that backdrop, the security stories deserve attention. Binance's investigation into its roughly $6 billion hack found attackers used fake job interviews and malicious code, and customers were largely made whole within three to four days. Separately, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has warned banks, NBFCs and fintech startups that criminals are now deploying AI agents for financial fraud. For any team handling money or identity, social-engineering through hiring funnels and AI-driven fraud now belong in the threat model, not the appendix.
What to watch this week: scan your own hiring and vendor-onboarding flows for social-engineering exposure, and check whether your fraud controls assume human attackers who are slow and error-prone, since AI agents are neither.
₹2,814 Cr
The Union Cabinet has approved a ₹2,814 Cr scheme to set up domestic lithium and nickel processing plants, running from FY27 to FY31. It will fund four plants, two each for lithium and nickel. Beneficiaries get milestone-linked capital subsidies of 30% of eligible investment, capped at ₹500 Cr for lithium and ₹900 Cr for nickel. Lithium plants need at least 30 kilo-tonnes capacity and nickel plants 50 kilo-tonnes.
Goldman Sachs and Apollo Global Management are in talks with investors to sell portions of a roughly $40 billion financing deal for SpaceX's AI chips, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. The two firms are looking for buyers for parts of the deal.
Binance's investigation into its $6 billion hack found attackers used fake job interviews and malicious code to steal $6.34 billion, of which around $2.85 billion has been frozen. The four-hour attack on October 29 was attributed by the FBI to North Korea-affiliated hackers. Binance says it replenished 98 percent of affected assets from its own funds. Attackers first targeted an engineer with a virus-laden Homebrew download in June.
South Korea has launched Hangang, a $276 million national supercomputer with 8,496 Nvidia GPUs and 614.7 petaflops of computing power. Built by the Ministry of Science and ICT and KISTI at a cost of 382.5 billion won, it is South Korea's sixth national supercomputer and replaces Nurion, deployed in 2018. It is expected to rank among the world's top 10 supercomputers and will support AI and scientific research.
₹100 Cr
Peppermint Robotics has raised ₹100 Cr (about $10.5 Mn) in a Pre-Series B round led by pi Ventures and Crane Venture Partners, with participation from Asiana Fund. The round included primary and secondary transactions. The Pune-based startup will expand manufacturing, develop new robots and strengthen its US and European businesses. It plans new cleaning and material-handling models over the next 12-15 months, and outdoor cleaning robots by 2028.
₹143.6 Cr
PhysicsWallah posted a consolidated net profit of ₹143.6 Cr in Q2 FY27, up 106% from ₹69.7 Cr a year earlier, after a loss of ₹88.3 Cr in the preceding quarter. Operating revenue rose 18.2% to ₹1,242.3 Cr, while total expenses grew 10.6%. EBITDA margin improved to 28% from 21.7%. Online revenue grew 26.4% to ₹693.5 Cr, and unique online enrolments rose 12.9% to 15 Lakh.
Binance customers got their crypto back in about 3-4 days after a hack of roughly $6.3 billion on October 29, which took about 20 minutes. By November 2, Binance had replaced 100% of the stolen amount to customers. The recovery was funded by SAFU, an emergency fund Binance set up in July 2018. A preliminary investigation points to a compromised engineer laptop.
₹101 Cr
Nykaa reported a consolidated net profit of ₹101.2 Cr in Q2 FY27, up 206.8% from ₹33 Cr a year earlier. Operating revenue rose 28.1% to ₹3,006 Cr, and GMV grew 30% to ₹6,151 Cr. EBITDA margin expanded to 8.7% from 6.8%. Beauty revenue rose 26.6% to ₹2,699.7 Cr, with 14 new stores taking the network to 338. The board also approved acquiring an 82% stake in Simply Nam for up to ₹33 Cr.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has warned banks, NBFCs and fintech startups about cyberattackers using AI agents for financial frauds. In an advisory issued on November 3, its NCTAU said attackers exploit unpatched software and misconfigured internet-facing servers. It advised institutions to report cyber incidents to CERT-In within six hours, test payment APIs and strengthen customer-facing infrastructure. Attackers route funds through mule accounts and withdraw via IMPS and NEFT.
Live from the top startup & tech feeds, last 24 hours. We link out to the source — the write-ups above are ours.
The 9:15 brief
Top Indian tech and product stories every morning at 9:15 IST. Every number sourced and dated.
Arjun’s TLDR
Meera’s TLDR
