Specialty healthcare providers grow; Monika Alcobev’s trendspotting

Quarterly report cards are in for Big Tech and startups alike.

Beauty ecommerce platform Nykaa kept on its upward trajectory with its quarterly after-tax profit more than doubling to Rs 67.7 crore year-on-year, driven by strong growth in its beauty business and growing traction for its fashion arm.

In fact, the company’s largest vertical—its beauty and personal care retail business—saw its best-ever GMV performance, a growth of Rs 4,302 crore, up 27% from last year.

Edtech firm PhysicsWallah, too, saw growth in both its top and bottom lines of about 33% year-on-year, driven by an expanding paid user base and strong operating margins.

Meanwhile, Google parent Alphabet closed 2025 on what it termed a “tremendous quarter”, with its fiscal revenue surging past $400 billion for the first time, and the company doubling its capital investment in 2026 to drive its AI advancements.

It’s a remarkable turnaround from last year, when the company was thought to be lagging behind rivals in the AI space, such as Microsoft and OpenAI.

Speaking of OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker just made it easier for organisations to deploy ‘AI coworkers’ across different processes.

The company’s new product, called Frontier, allows organisations to build and manage AI tools and simplifies the process of rolling out AI agents—part of a broader effort to boost the adoption of the technology among corporate clients.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Specialty healthcare providers grow
• Monika Alcobev’s trendspotting
• AI in retail stock markets

Here’s your trivia for today: In what country does the Amazon River begin?

Insight

Specialty healthcare providers grow

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Single-specialty providers, rather than sprawling hospital chains, are what’s garnering investor interest. 

Organised single-specialty healthcare platforms, from dialysis and fertility clinics to oncology, dental and eyecare networks, are on track to nearly triple in size to more than $12 billion by 2030, according to a new report by Bessemer Venture Partners.

Single focus:

• The forecast shows a structural shift underway in India’s $54-billion healthcare services market, where capital is increasingly flowing toward narrowly focused care models built for scale, efficiency and repeatable outcomes.
• Bessemer describes these as “specialty-native” platforms: purpose-built networks that prioritise depth of expertise over breadth of services, and scale through hub-and-spoke or clinic-led models rather than large inpatient infrastructure.
• The venture firm has already backed several companies aligned with this thesis, including NephroPlus, which operates dialysis centres across India and overseas; fertility platform Pluro; and Sukino, which focuses on continuum and post-acute care.

Funding Alert

Startup: Material Depot

Amount: $10M

Round: Series A

Startup: Fibr AI

Amount: $5.7M

Round: Seed

Startup: Good Monk

Amount: Rs 33 Cr

Round: pre-Series A

In depth

Monika Alcobev’s strategy for growth

Monika Alcobev, an importer and distributor of premium alcohol brands, betting on cultural trends is key to growth.

Two of Monika Alcobev’s recent additions—Korean soju ‘Jinro’ and Spanish liqueur ‘Licor 43’, offer a clear view into how the company thinks about scale. Neither brand is positioned merely as a new SKU; both are anchored in broader cultural movements already playing out in India.

Trendsetting:

• Founded in 2015 as Monika Enterprises by Bhimji Nanji Patel, and incorporated as Monika Alcobev Ltd in 2022, the company has emerged as one of India’s largest independent importers in the spirits and wine category. 
• Headquartered in Mumbai, Monika Alcobev operates across the HORECA, retail, and travel retail channels in India, the Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
• Over the last three years, Monika Alcobev has grown at a steady 30–35% annually, closing the most recent first half at nearly 40%.

Startup

AI in retail stock markets

For years, making money in the stock market using artificial intelligence (AI) has largely been an area dominated by the well-funded investment houses. A Mumbai-based startup wants to break that monopoly by bringing AI-driven investing to retail investors.

InvestorAi believes the benefits of AI can be made available to ordinary retail investors with a clear focus on outcomes rather than just glorifying this technology.

News & updates

• Meltdown: Cryptocurrency rout continues as Bitcoin dropped below $70,000 on Thursday. The cryptocurrency fell as low as $69,055.46, marking its first dip below $70,000 since November 2024.
• Trade talks: India and the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and four other countries, have agreed on the terms to start negotiations for a free trade agreement, Minister of Commerce Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.
• Layoffs: Gemini Space Station, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, said it approved a plan to cut up to 200 jobs globally and operate only in the US and Singapore, under a broader cost-cutting effort.

In what country does the Amazon River begin?

Answer: Peru

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