The Anthropic Shockwave, Juleo Shuts Shop, and Flipkart Gets Relief

Anthropic’s launch of autonomous workplace tools did not only rattle Indian IT stocks, it exposed the vulnerability of the business model that built India’s $280+ billion tech-services empire. When the Nifty IT index dropped 5-7% in a single session, wiping out nearly ₹1.9 lakh crore in value, the market was not reacting to a product demo. It was reacting to a structural threat: what happens to labor arbitrage when labor itself becomes optional.

For two decades, Indian IT sold execution at scale. Cheap engineers replaced expensive Western ones. Growth meant adding more seats. Anthropic’s agentic tools break that logic. A $20-a-month AI subscription that can handle legal review, analytics, and customer support challenges the idea that a 50-person offshore team is necessary at all. This is not platform change, like the shift from on-premise to cloud. It is workforce substitution. The core product of Indian IT - human execution - is being replaced, not upgraded.

In the near term, the consequences are blunt. Hiring freezes will hit entry-level roles first. Bengaluru and Hyderabad will feel it in fresher pipelines and campus placements. Margins will compress as clients push for price cuts that mirror their new AI-enabled productivity. Reskilling programs will expand, but not all employees can transition, and not all transitions will be fast enough. A 10% headcount reduction in a sector this large is not an HR statistic. It is a local economic event.

The market’s reaction also revealed a deeper bias. US tech firms are seen as owners of AI tools. Indian IT firms are seen as users of them. Ownership commands multiples. Usage commands discounts. This is the “India execution discount” made visible. When execution itself is automated, the execution arm looks redundant.

Yet this shockwave is also an opportunity. The same tools threatening services firms are enabling a new class of startups: companies that can reach massive scale with tiny teams. The “billion-dollar, ten-person startup” is no longer theoretical. AI-first firms abroad are already proving that revenue per employee can be an order of magnitude higher than traditional SaaS. Indian founders, unburdened by legacy workforces, are among the most aggressive adopters of vibe-coding - letting AI generate most of the code while humans focus on architecture and quality.

Where India can truly win is vertical AI. Generic productivity agents will be dominated by US players. But AI that understands Indian tax law, GST, vernacular customer support, or regulatory compliance has defensibility. Complexity becomes a moat. Localization becomes leverage. This is how India moves from being the world’s execution arm to owning slices of intelligence itself.

The government now sits awkwardly between protection and transition. A safe-harbour for IT services makes sense for stability, but it does nothing to prepare the sector for automation. What India needs instead are AI-transition grants for MSMEs, regulatory sandboxes for agentic AI, and serious investment in AI talent pipelines. Protecting the old model delays the inevitable. Accelerating the new one creates optionality.

This is not the collapse of Indian IT. It is its forced evolution. Labor arbitrage built the fortress. AI is hollowing it out. What replaces it can either be a thinner version of the same service industry, or a sharper ecosystem of AI-native companies selling outcomes instead of hours.

The shockwave is real. But so is the opening it creates. The question is not whether India’s IT model will change. It already is. The question is whether India will own the tools of that change - or merely rent them.

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.

“Mama, I Don’t Wanna Die”: Matchmaking Startup Juleo Shuts Down Due To Capital Crunch

Matchmaking startup Juleo has shut down operations amid a capital crunch, with cofounder Varun Sud announcing on LinkedIn that the company is pausing services after failing to raise fresh funds.

Founded in 2023, Juleo raised $2.5 Mn in 2024 from angel investors including Livspace cofounder Ramakant Sharma and CRED founder Kunal Shah. The shutdown adds to a tough year for the ecosystem, with 25 startups closing in 2025, double the 12 that wrapped up in 2024.

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“Maamla Legal Hai”: SC Sets Aside NCLAT Order On Flipkart, Sends Dominance Case Back for Fresh Review

The Supreme Court has set aside an NCLAT order directing a probe into Flipkart and sent the matter back to the appellate tribunal, ruling that the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal must independently assess whether there is sufficient basis to order an investigation.

The case stems from a 2018 complaint by the All India Online Vendors Association, which accused Flipkart of abusing dominance by favoring large sellers and enabling deep discounting that allegedly hurt smaller vendors.

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“Waah Kya Scene Hai”: Aye Finance IPO To Open On Monday, Price Band Set At INR 122-129

MSME-focused NBFC Aye Finance is set to open its ₹1,010 Cr IPO on Monday, with the company filing its red herring prospectus and fixing a price band of ₹122 to ₹129 per share. The fresh issue has been pared down to ₹710 Cr, while the offer-for-sale component has been trimmed to ₹300 Cr.

The recalibration signals a cautious approach as the lender heads to the public markets amid mixed sentiment around financial services listings.

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“Sab Changa Si”: For Fractal IPO, Price Band Set At INR 857-900

Analytics firm Fractal has set a price band of ₹857 to ₹900 for its ₹2,833.9 Cr IPO, which at the upper end values the company at around ₹15,480 Cr or roughly $1.7 Bn.

Anchor bidding for the issue will take place on Friday, February 6, ahead of the public issue opening and closing on Wednesday, February 11. The pricing underscores Fractal’s attempt to balance valuation expectations with market appetite as it heads to the bourses.

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1. Clean-label food startup The Whole Truth has raised $51 Mn in a Series D round comprising primary and secondary transactions, co-led by Sauce.vc and Sofina, as it gears up for a public market debut. Founded in 2019 by Shashank Mehta, the brand, which started as And Nothing Else, now sells protein-focused snacks.

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2. Climate-tech startup Varaha has raised $20 Mn in a funding round led by WestBridge Capital, with participation from existing investors Omnivore Ventures and RTP Global. The company plans to deploy the fresh capital to expand its footprint, strengthen its scientific and MRV capabilities.

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3. Technology-enabled sports startup Gamepoint has raised ₹7 Cr in a pre-Series A round co-led by Zaggle founder Raj P Narayanam and Aditya Vuchi, with participation from Praveen Raju and others. The fresh capital will be used to expand Gamepoint’s multi-sport centre network.

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