The Analytics Reset, Shastra VC Launches Fellowship, and Ola Rolls Out Bharat Cell-Powered Vehicles

For more than a decade, India’s analytics giants made their money by exporting talent. Fractal Analytics, Mu Sigma, and their peers built billion-dollar businesses on an outsourcing model dressed up as “decision sciences.” Global companies shipped messy data to India, and thousands of fresh analysts cleaned it up, built dashboards, and generated insights - month after month, hour after billable hour. It was labor arbitrage with a smarter suit on.

Then came Generative AI, a wrecking ball that doesn’t care about pedigree.

All the tasks India scaled into an industry - data cleaning, creating models, summarizing trends, generating reports - are now the cheapest things AI can do. Work that used to take teams weeks can now be prompted in seconds. The very foundation of the industry has been automated faster than leadership could update their PowerPoints.

Fractal clearly sees the writing on the wall. That’s why its upcoming IPO is more than a liquidity event - it’s a transformation signal. The company wants public markets to believe it is no longer a services firm with an AI wrapper, but a genuine AI product company. Models, platforms, and subscriptions.

There’s truth in that ambition. Fractal’s revenue crossed ₹2,000 crore, with EBITDA margins improving. They’ve built real products - Qure.ai in healthcare, FlyFish for pricing optimization, and Eugenie for anomaly detection. But the harder question is whether these product bets can scale fast enough to replace a business model that has funded the company for 20 years.

Because the old model is breaking. Enterprise clients are negotiating tougher and paying for outcomes, not manpower. The pyramid structure that kept services profitable - 1 leader, a few managers, and a sea of juniors - doesn’t work when juniors are replaced by automation.

Mu Sigma is the cautionary tale. Once the crown jewel of India’s analytics sector, valued at $1.5 billion, courted by Walmart, and loved by private equity. Today, it is a shadow of its peak - slowed by internal conflicts, leadership churn, strategy paralysis, and an inability to pivot beyond people-led analytics. If automation replaces the base of the pyramid, then Mu Sigma’s entire architecture collapses.

Even worse, India risks losing this category completely. If analytics becomes plug-and-play AI, why will Fortune 500 clients keep outsourcing to India? Why send work across the world when products like Palantir Foundry, Databricks AI, Snowflake Cortex, and OpenAI’s enterprise stack can handle it in-house?

For the first time, India’s analytics companies are not competing with Accenture or Deloitte - they’re competing with algorithms.

This IPO is Fractal’s attempt to prove that India can still lead. It is a chance to show that the “analytics outsourcing” era is ending, and the “AI product” era is beginning.

Fractal’s IPO isn’t only a listing. It’s a verdict. Did India build the future of AI analytics, or did it just build the cheapest labor for yesterday’s problems?

Let’s go through what else is happening in Indian startup world - Grab your simmering cup of StartupChai.in and unwind with our hand-brewed memes.

“Aaj Ki Taza Khabar”: Shastra VC launches deeptech fellowship with $100,000 grants

Shastra VC just rolled out SDEX, a shiny new fellowship that helps researchers turn deeptech dreams into startups without giving away a single share.

Fellows can snag up to $100,000 equity-free while validating their tech and dipping a toe into the commercial pool over 16 to 24 weeks. Only 15 teams can board this rocket, and the countdown ends January 31, 2026 - better start the ignition.

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“Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi”: Ola Electric begins mass deliveries of 4680 Bharat Cell-powered vehicles

Ola Electric has kicked off mass deliveries of scooters powered by its homegrown 4680 Bharat Cell battery, putting more range and performance under Indian riders’ feet.

The S1 Pro+ is the first to carry this indigenous power core, promising zippier rides and sturdier safety. With deliveries in full throttle, Ola seems to be revving India closer to its EV-hub destiny.

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“Land Of Milk And Honey”: TAC Infosec Initiates US Listing Of Subsidiary CyberScope

TAC Infosec’s subsidiary CyberScope has quietly knocked on the SEC’s door with a confidential Form F-1, setting the stage for a US debut.

The Web3 security firm was snapped up earlier this year, instantly adding $1.2 Mn and a global bounce to TAC’s numbers. Founder Trishneet Arora once spoke of Nasdaq dreams and this looks like step one in a very American hustle.

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1. StockGro is lining up fresh capital from Boston-based Valiant Capital Management as part of its ongoing Series B sprint. The social investing platform recently bagged $17 million and seems hungry for more fuel to power its market-savvy mission.

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2. Virohan is gearing up for a ₹39.27 Cr Series B, with Japan’s Mynavi Corporation taking the lead and familiar investors joining the clinic. After a healthy pre-Series B in May, the healthcare edtech player is clearly in expansion mode, prescribing growth as its next big course.

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