Last year, we wrote about quick commerce cementing its place as the next big thing in Indian consumer tech. This year, that foundation became the launchpad for something even more exciting: entirely new business models and categories that quick commerce infrastructure made possible.

The convenience layer that quick commerce built—hyperlocal logistics, 10-minute delivery expectations, consumer willingness to pay for speed—became the rails on which new companies could reimagine categories that seemed impervious to disruption. And in a parallel shift, AI stopped being a general-purpose curiosity and started becoming a deeply personal, category-specific tool.

⚡ Quick Becomes Infrastructure

Perhaps the most significant shift this year was recognizing quick commerce not just as a business model, but as infrastructure. The behavioral change it drove—expecting anything, anywhere, in minutes—created possibilities that extend far beyond grocery delivery.

Consider home services. For decades, this remained one of the last frontiers of informal commerce. Despite having solutions for everything else on our phones—cabs, food, groceries—reliable home help remained frustratingly elusive. The insight that cracked this open was surprisingly simple: house help absenteeism is a 2-4x monthly universal pain point. When you need someone to clean your home or wash your dishes, you need them now, not tomorrow.

This is the thesis behind our partnership with Snabbit, which we believe represents one of the biggest disruptions in consumer internet in India this decade. The model works because quick commerce normalized both the expectation of instant fulfillment and the willingness to pay for it.

Any category where supply and demand were matched in fragmented, informal ways, where timing is critical, and where trust matters - these are ripe for the quick services model.

🛍️ The Limits of Horizontal, The Promise of Vertical

Here's a number that surprised us: 80% of GMV across all quick commerce companies is still driven by grocery. Despite adding thousands of SKUs across apparel, electronics, and beauty, these platforms remain fundamentally grocery verticals with everything else as fringe.

This isn't a criticism. It's an observation that opens opportunity. Horizontal platforms optimized for grocery cannot efficiently solve for categories with fundamentally different requirements. Fashion needs try-and-buy and style curation. Food needs freshness guarantees and 10-minute delivery of hot meals. Premium grocery needs quality assurance that mass-market dark stores can't provide.

The vertical quick commerce thesis is compelling precisely because it addresses trade-offs horizontal players cannot. In fashion, we're seeing platforms enable impulse purchases for party wear or office emergencies. These are use cases where speed genuinely enhances customer experience. The "I made a spontaneous plan and need something to wear in an hour" moment that previously meant rushing to a mall can now be served with try-and-buy delivered to your door.

In food, the innovation is even more dramatic. When delivery happens in 10 minutes instead of 35, entirely new categories unlock - hot beverages that arrive hot, fresh snacks for the 4 PM office craving, meals that don't need reheating. Companies are engineering full-stack solutions from ingredient sourcing to cooking technology to stationed delivery executives, solving for freshness in ways marketplace models never could.

These aren't incremental improvements to existing models. They're new forms of commerce where speed is one axis of innovation among many.

🤖 From General to Personal: Consumer AI Gets Vertical

While quick commerce verticalized around categories, AI verticalized around use cases. The shift from general-purpose chatbots to specialized tools that understand context, remember preferences, and solve specific problems accelerated dramatically this year.

India's AI moment is fundamentally different from the West. ChatGPT's penetration here stands at just 5% of the digital user base. But early adopters show engagement metrics that rival those of social platforms. The opportunity isn't converting ChatGPT users; it's reaching the billion+ Indians who will leapfrog directly into vertical AI applications.

We see this playing out across our portfolio. SpeakX has become India's largest AI-powered English-speaking platform, enabling over 10 million learners to improve their fluency through real-time conversational practice. Unlike grammar-drill apps, it puts a speaking partner in your pocket.

The underlying thesis is the democratization of expertise. A personal health coach who speaks your dialect, a tutor available when you need them, a companion who remembers every conversation. These were fantasies when human experts couldn't scale. AI breaks this equation entirely.

📈 The Value Creation Flywheel Accelerates

Last year, we wrote about how Swiggy, ixigo, and FirstCry's IPOs created a virtuous cycle of confidence in India's consumer tech ecosystem. In 2025, that flywheel accelerated.

Meesho made history as India's first major horizontal e-commerce platform to go public. But what makes it significant isn't the milestone itself. It's what kind of company reached it. Meesho wasn't built to serve India's urban elite; it was built to democratize internet commerce for every Indian. When we partnered with Vidit and Sanjeev in 2017, they had two months of runway and a conviction that e-commerce in India needed to be built differently. Eight years later, they serve 210+ million consumers through a model that empowers 575,000+ sellers, while remaining the same driven, humble, customer-obsessed team. The market rewarded that patience and that differentiation.

Urban Company's listing told a similar story through a different lens. Eleven years from a 110 sq ft office to serving 7 million+ households, and along the way, proving that full-stack wins when quality matters. Their insistence on owning the service experience end to end, training professionals, and building dignity into gig work created a global playbook for home services. As their first institutional investors, we've watched them stay true to that vision through every cycle.

These IPOs are evidence that the next generation of Indian consumer companies can be built sustainably, profitably, and at massive scale. Founders building today can look at Meesho and Urban Company and see proof that unconventional models work, that patient capital exists, and that public markets will reward businesses built with conviction.

New Partnerships & Growing Relationships

This year, we were fortunate to partner with and deepen our relationships with several pioneering companies that are reshaping their respective sectors.

Our partnership with Snabbit exemplifies the transformative potential we look for in consumer tech. India's first quick-service app is revolutionizing urban living by connecting households with trusted, trained professionals for on-demand home services. Snabbit is formalizing one of India's largest yet most underserved categories. What began with our Series A investment in January 2025 has evolved into a remarkable growth story. We participated in their Series B just four months later and their $30M Series C nine months after our initial investment. The company has scaled from under 1,000 to over 10,000 jobs daily, processed 3 lakh+ jobs in October alone, and now operates across 5 major cities, all while creating dignified livelihoods for a 100% women-led fleet of 5,000 experts.

We deepened our partnership with SpeakX, which has become India's largest Generative AI-powered English-speaking platform. Arpit Mittal and the team have enabled over 10 million learners—students, job seekers, and homemakers—to improve fluency and unlock new career opportunities. With a profitable foundation, 200,000 paying subscribers, and $7.5M ARR achieved with just 20 people, SpeakX is proving that accessible, AI-driven learning can also be sustainable.

Seekho continued its impressive trajectory with a $28M Series B, scaling to 25M+ monthly active users. Rohit Choudhary, Keertay Agarwal, and Yash Banwani are redefining "Edutainment on Tap" for the next 500 million Indians through bite-sized, vernacular content that's practical, accessible, and fun.

Our journey with AppsForBharat reached new heights with their Series C funding round, extending a partnership that began when we led their Series A in 2021. Prashant Sachan's vision to digitize devotion has scaled remarkably. Sri Mandir has grown to over 40 million downloads, with 12 lakh devotees performing 52 lakh pujas across 70+ temples in the past year. The platform's reach now extends globally, with 20% of demand coming from the Indian diaspora in the US, UK, UAE, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Shaping India's Consumer Tech Narrative

Throughout the year, we shaped India's consumer tech narrative through a series of thought leadership initiatives, knowledge-sharing events, and insightful conversations.

We released 'Consumer AI's Next Wave: From General to Personal', a comprehensive analysis of how specialized AI applications are emerging across education, commerce, content, social, travel, and recruitment. Nearly 2 billion people now use AI globally, yet 97% remain on free versions and 81% of spending still flows to general assistants. The shift from one-size-fits-all chatbots to specialized tools that understand context, remember preferences, and solve specific problems represents an extraordinary opportunity.

Our SummitUp episode on Consumer AI explored why India's AI moment is fundamentally different—with ChatGPT at just 5% penetration but early adopters showing retention metrics that rival social platforms, the opportunity for vertical AI applications is immense. We discussed how a billion+ Indians will leapfrog directly into specialized AI use cases, from personalized education and AI companions addressing real loneliness to mental health support and reimagined commerce experiences.

Our SummitUp podcast explored vertical quick commerce in fashion and food, where Manish Advani and Ashray Iyengar examined how vertical specialists are reimagining entire categories. The conversation unpacked why hot beverages and snacking are perfect entry points for quick food delivery, how try-and-buy is solving fashion's biggest online shopping problem, and the emerging niches in baby products, premium grocery, and beauty.

Our Day One podcast series brought deeply personal founder stories this year, revealing the human journeys behind transformative companies.

The SpeakX episode covered how AI unlocked conversational English learning at scale, why capital should fuel growth rather than problem-solving, and prioritization as the ultimate superpower in lean teams. Our conversation with Snabbit’s Aayush Agarwal captured what may be the biggest disruption in consumer internet in India this decade.

We launched our Consumer AI Builders Meetups in Bengaluru and Gurugram, bringing together founders building disruptive AI-powered consumer experiences—from AI tutors and stylists to Bharat-focused companion apps and reimagined social networks. Early-stage teams demoed innovative products and exchanged actionable feedback with peers while Notable builders, including Arpit Mittal (SpeakX), Prashant Sachan (AppsForBharat), Shaurya Gupta (Wishlink), and Pragya Misra (OpenAI), shared sharp perspectives on crafting and scaling delightful, responsible AI experiences for massive audiences.