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Wakefit joins IPO queue; Pine Labs DRHP, decoded
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Mattress and home furniture brand Wakefit is heading to the bourses. This and more in today’s ETtech Top 5.Also in the letter:■ How AI will reshape jobs■ SoftBank’s ASI ambitions■ Meta CTO slams Sam AltmanWakefit files for IPO to raise Rs 468 crore (L-R) Ankit Garg and Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, founders, WakefitBengaluru-based Wakefit has filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with Sebi, looking to raise Rs 468 crore through a fresh issue. The mattress and home furniture brand plans to use the funds to ramp up offline expansion and double down on marketing.Catch up quick: The IPO also includes an offer-for-sale (OFS) of 58.4 million shares by existing shareholders.Peak XV Partners: 25 million sharesVerlinvest: 10.2 million sharesInvestcorp: 6.1 million sharesParamark Ventures: 3.1 million sharesRaising stake: Elevation Capital, which owns nearly 5% of Wakefit, bought shares worth Rs 32.5 crore from the company’s current and former employees in the months leading up to the company filing its draft papers. The venture capital firm is not selling any shares in the IPO.Use of proceeds:Rs 227 crore has been earmarked to open 118 new retail outlets and meet the expenses for existing stores.Rs 108 crore will go towards marketing and brand building.By the numbers:Revenue for the first nine months of FY25 stood at Rs 971 crore, with a net loss of Rs 8.8 crore.FY24 revenue came in at Rs 986 crore, with a net loss of Rs 15 crore.As of December 2024, the company had 98 offline stores across India.The backstory: Founded in 2016 as a direct-to-consumer mattress startup, Wakefit has since grown into a broader home furniture player. It now competes with legacy brands like Sheela Foam (which owns Sleepwell and Kurl-On) as well as new-age rivals such as The Sleep Company and SleepyCat.With this move, Wakefit joins a growing list of startups headed to the public markets, alongside names like Groww, Pine Labs, Urban Company, and Meesho.Decoding Pine Labs’ Rs 2,600 crore IPO play Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine LabsNoida-based merchant payments platform Pine Labs filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with Sebi, setting the stage to raise Rs 2,600 crore through fresh issue and offer for sale (OFS) of up to 147.8 million shares. The company is eyeing a valuation of $4-5 billion, per sources cited by ET on June 11.Who’s selling? Peak XV Partners, once the dominant shareholder with nearly 90%, now holds around 20%. Other major backers exiting or paring stakes include Mastercard, PayPal, and Temasek. The cap table also includes well-known founders:Harsh Jain (Dream11)Sriharsha Majety (Swiggy)Girish Mathrubootham (Freshworks)Gaurav Munjal (Unacademy)Alok Mittal (Indifi)Built by M&A: From its origins as a point of sale (PoS) solutions provider for large retailers, Pine Labs has pivoted into a full-stack fintech platform, fueled largely by acquisitions.Qwikcilver (2019): Entered gift cards.Mosambee (2022): Tapped into SME merchants.Fave (2020-21): Forayed into Southeast Asia and consumer-facing UPI payments.It has also since expanded its gift card business to the US and Australia, while also entering online payments to take on Razorpay and Paytm.By the numbers:FY24 revenue: Rs 1,344 crore (vs Rs 933 crore in FY22).9M FY25 profit: Rs 26 crore.9M FY24 net loss: Rs 151.6 crore.Expenses: Up from Rs 1,402 crore (FY23) to Rs 1,622 crore (FY24).Future bets: The DRHP outlines a push into product development, payments infrastructure, and credit offerings. Pine Labs intends to double down on:Mid-market and UPI-first small merchants.International push across Southeast and West Asia.Inorganic growth while staying acquisitive.It also wants to deepen credit-at-checkout and digitise bank-led merchant onboarding.Sponsor ETtech Top 5 & Morning Dispatch! Why it matters: ETtech Top 5 and Morning Dispatch are must-reads for India’s tech and business leaders, including startup founders, investors, policy makers, industry insiders and employees.The opportunity:Reach a highly engaged audience of decision-makers.Boost your brand’s visibility among the tech-savvy community.Custom sponsorship options to align with your brand’s goals.What’s next: Interested? Reach out to us at spotlightpartner@timesinternet.in to explore sponsorship opportunities.AI at work: Job cuts and tech leader opinions In April, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) sounded the alarm: artificial intelligence could affect up to 40% of jobs globally. Several other reports echo this looming shift in the world of work.CEOs’ speak: Global tech leaders aren’t mincing words either. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have all weighed in. Huang cautioned, “You are not going to lose your job to AI, but you are going to lose your job to somebody who uses AI.”Amodei went further, predicting that nearly half of all entry-level white-collar roles could soon vanish.Indian tech voices are equally candid:Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu called it a “sobering” reality, warning that the coming productivity boom in software could wipe out many developer jobs.Info Edge CEO Hitesh Oberoi offered a gentler take, urging workers to reskill and adapt as the nature of work evolves with AI at the heart of it.Yes, but: Not everyone’s charging ahead just yet. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the firm scaled back AI in customer support after it hurt service quality.SoftBank goes all in on artificial super intelligence Masayoshi Son, CEO, SoftBankSoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has laid out an audacious plan to make the group the world’s leading platform for artificial super intelligence (ASI) within the next decade.What he said: “We want to become the organiser of the industry in the artificial super intelligence era,” Son told shareholders, comparing his vision to the platform dominance of Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, which have all benefitted from “winner takes all” dynamics.The vision: Son defines ASI as intelligence that outperforms humans by a factor of 10,000.Backing it up with capital:Acquired US chip design firm Ampere for $6.5 billion.Committed up to $40 billion to OpenAI, with $32 billion already invested.Son expects OpenAI to go public and declared, “I’m all in on OpenAI.”Also Read: SoftBank eyeing buyout deals in India to push AI-led IT, BPO operationsWhy it matters: After misfires like WeWork, SoftBank is returning to high-stakes tech investing, this time placing AI and chip infrastructure at the heart of its future.Also Read: SoftBank posts first annual profit in four years, but Ola and Swiggy weigh on Vision Fund 2 in Q4Ex-OpenAI researcher confirms move to Meta, denies $100 million payout The battle for high-level AI talent is heating up. Lucas Beyer, one of three senior researchers who recently left OpenAI for Meta, has confirmed his move to the social media giant, but pushed back on reports that the trio received a $100 million signing bonus.Driving the news:Beyer, alongside Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai from OpenAI’s Zurich office, was reportedly lured by Meta to join Mark Zuckerberg’s newly formed “superintelligence” team, according to The Wall Street Journal.OpenAI chief Sam Altman took a swipe at Meta’s hiring tactics, claiming the company was using bloated pay packages to compensate for its supposed lack of innovation. Yes, but: Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth hit back at an internal meeting on Thursday, telling staff that Altman’s comments were inaccurate, The Verge reported. “Sam is known to exaggerate,” Boz said, adding, “And in this case, I know why he’s doing it, which is because we are succeeding at getting talent from OpenAI.”Also Read: Meta hires three OpenAI researchers: ReportTell me more: Meta’s AI ambitions have shifted to high gear in recent months. The company is pouring money into its efforts, including investing $14.3 billion into Scale AI for a 49% stake in the AI startup. It has also brought onboard Scale’s 28-year-old founder Alexandr Wang to strengthen this aggressive push.
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