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PhonePe's FY26 revenue rises 11% to ₹7,920 Cr, but net loss widens 62% to ₹2,792 Cr ahead of its IPO

Edition 033 · 26 July 2026 · D2C Brief
PhonePe The Bear House BlueStone Swiggy Bira 91 Zomato ← Edition 032

Top story

1 signal
Top StoryPlatformsPayments● High Urgency
⊙ Hindu BusinessLine, Entrackr · Jul 25, 2026Confirmed

PhonePe's FY26 revenue rises 11% to ₹7,920 Cr, but net loss widens 62% to ₹2,792 Cr ahead of its IPO

Fact
PhonePe reported FY26 consolidated revenue from operations of ₹7,920 Cr, up 11% YoY, while consolidated net loss widened 62% YoY to ₹2,792 Cr from ₹1,727 Cr in FY25, per Hindu BusinessLine. Second-half revenue rose to about ₹3,746 Cr, pointing to stronger momentum later in the year. The wider loss reflects several one-time items: an ESOP acceleration charge, a non-cash goodwill impairment, a gain on the sale of a partial stake in an associate, and losses from discontinued operations. Underlying growth also faced real headwinds: the discontinuation of rent-payment services, the government's ban on real-money gaming transactions, and the absence of UPI subsidy incentives that had propped up earnings in prior years. The results land as PhonePe prepares for a public listing.
Interpretation
This is the same PhonePe whose combined UPI share with Google Pay slipped to roughly 78.76% in yesterday's edition, the first sub-80% reading came in May, per NPCI data, yet PhonePe itself still processed 10.48 Bn UPI transactions in June, its fourth straight month above 10 Bn, per Entrackr. The gap between “biggest by volume” and “financially strained ahead of an IPO” is the story: dominant transaction share hasn't translated into profitability once RMG bans and UPI subsidy withdrawal removed two props at once. Investors evaluating the IPO will be pricing execution beyond payments volume, not the volume itself.
Action
D2C brands relying on PhonePe as a primary checkout rail should read the one-time-charge disclosures carefully rather than the headline loss number, and should track whether IPO-stage cost discipline changes merchant-facing pricing or settlement terms once the listing process advances.
Watch Next
Whether PhonePe's IPO timeline firms up following these results, how the market prices a dominant-but-loss-widening payments business, and whether second-half revenue momentum (₹3,746 Cr) continues into FY27.
Hindu BusinessLine, Entrackr · Jul 25, 2026 · FY26 financial disclosure
CONFIDENCE 88PRIORITY 85

What’s Moving

3 signals
What’s MovingFashionRetail● High Urgency
⊙ Inc42 · Jul 25, 2026Confirmed

Menswear D2C brand The Bear House targets ₹500 Cr FY27 revenue, nearly doubling FY26's ₹270 Cr, on an aggressive offline push

Fact
The Bear House, a Bengaluru-based premium menswear D2C brand founded by Harsh and Tanvi Somaiya, posted FY26 operating revenue of ₹270 Cr, more than double FY25's ₹130 Cr, with net profit rising 5x YoY to ₹16 Cr, per Inc42. The brand says it has been profitable since its first year of operations. It opened its first store in February 2025 and has scaled to 24 exclusive outlets within a year, alongside 109 Reliance Trends shop-in-shops and 272-plus Reliance touchpoints overall, with plans to expand to nearly 65 stores. Offline currently contributes about 25% of revenue; quick commerce, via Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and Myntra M Now among others, contributes roughly 2%, which founder Harsh Somaiya expects to grow to 8-10%. The company is raising a fresh $25 Mn Series B, having previously raised ₹50 Cr in a Series A led by JM Financial India Growth Fund III.
Interpretation
A brand generating just 25% of revenue offline is still calling offline its primary growth lever for a 2x revenue target, that's a bet that store economics, new outlets reportedly hit EBITDA breakeven within two months, with a 12-14 month payback, scale faster than online acquisition costs do. It also puts The Bear House in direct comparison with Snitch (₹900 Cr FY26 revenue, up 80%) and The Souled Store (profit fell 38% to ₹11 Cr despite 37% revenue growth), a reminder that in menswear D2C right now, revenue growth and profit growth are increasingly decoupling, and The Bear House is explicitly underwriting its FY27 target on avoiding that split.
Action
D2C fashion brands evaluating offline expansion should benchmark against The Bear House's reported 12-14 month store payback period and 2-month EBITDA breakeven before committing capital, and should note its practice of launching most new stores where online traction already exists rather than using retail to enter cold markets.
Watch Next
Whether the $25 Mn Series B closes and at what valuation, whether store count reaches the 65-store target on schedule, and whether quick commerce actually reaches the 8-10% revenue share Somaiya is projecting.
Inc42 · Jul 25, 2026 · Company financials, founder interview
CONFIDENCE 80PRIORITY 58
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What’s MovingQuick CommercePlatforms● High Urgency
⊙ Inc42 · Jul 25, 2026Confirmed

Swiggy tumbles 9.19% on IOCC index-exclusion fears while BlueStone surges 28.9% on a surprise profit, in a bearish week for new-age tech stocks

Fact
Swiggy was the week's worst-performing new-age tech stock, tumbling 9.19% to ₹251.40, per Inc42's weekly tracker of 59 listed new-age companies. The selloff followed Swiggy's board approving a cap on foreign ownership at 49.5% to qualify as an Indian-Owned-and-Controlled Company, edition 032's lead story two days ago, with Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research estimating passive outflows of nearly $460 Mn if the reclassification triggers exclusion from global indices like MSCI and FTSE. Flipkart's food delivery entry and margin pressure at Instamart added further weight. BlueStone moved the opposite direction, surging 28.9% to close near ₹772.90 after Q1 FY27 results showed a swing to consolidated net profit of ₹5.9 Cr from a ₹34.7 Cr loss a year earlier, on revenue up 50% YoY to ₹736.8 Cr. Of the 59 stocks tracked, only 16 closed the week higher; combined market cap fell to $138.25 Bn from $142.41 Bn.
Interpretation
Two stories from the same site in two days now show the market actively penalising the exact structural moves quick-commerce platforms are choosing for strategic reasons. Swiggy's board is making a deliberate long-term bet, unlocking direct inventory control for Instamart, and the market's immediate read is a $460 Mn index-exclusion risk, not the strategic upside. Meanwhile BlueStone's profit swing shows that jewellery-led omnichannel D2C brands are the segment actually rewarded this week, a sharp contrast to quick commerce's structural growing pains.
Action
D2C brands with Instamart exposure should model a scenario where Swiggy faces passive-outflow pressure and capital discipline follows, and jewellery and lifestyle D2C brands should study BlueStone's Q1 FY27 disclosure for the specific same-store sales and margin drivers behind its swing to profit.
Watch Next
Whether Swiggy's IOCC proposal passes at its August 18 AGM and whether index providers confirm an exclusion decision, and whether BlueStone's rally holds once the broader market selloff, geopolitical tensions and crude above $100/barrel, stabilises.
Inc42 · Jul 25, 2026 · Weekly stock tracker, Q1 FY27 earnings
CONFIDENCE 84PRIORITY 62
What’s MovingFunding● Medium Urgency
⊙ Entrackr · Jul 20-25, 2026Confirmed

Indian startup funding falls a second straight week, down 40% to $164 Mn, as the pullback that started last week accelerates

Fact
Indian startups raised roughly $164 Mn across 16 deals in the week of July 20-25, down 40% from about $271 Mn the previous week, per Entrackr, marking a second consecutive week of decline after edition 032 reported a 26% weekly drop to $209 Mn the day before. Growth-stage activity was led by deeptech platform Raghu Vamsi Aerospace Group's $40 Mn Series B, with fintech firms Veriqus and BusinessNext each also closing $40 Mn Series B rounds. Bengaluru led city-wise activity with 8 deals, followed by Mumbai with 5. Entrackr's own eight-week rolling average stands at roughly $325 Mn per week and 20 deals, meaning both of the last two weeks have landed meaningfully below trend.
Interpretation
Two straight weeks of decline, first a 26% drop reported in yesterday's edition, now a 40% drop on top of it, is no longer noise, it's a trend line. And it's landing in the same week a major D2C-adjacent brand's governance crisis became public and a payments giant posted a widening loss ahead of its IPO. None of these are directly caused by each other, but they are the same underlying signal from different angles: capital is getting more selective, and it is rewarding disclosed profitability, BlueStone, The Bear House, over disclosed scale.
Action
Early and growth-stage D2C founders currently raising should price in a slower process than eight weeks ago, Entrackr's own rolling average is nearly double this week's total, and should lead fundraising conversations with profitability or path-to-profitability metrics given what actually got rewarded by public markets and later-stage investors this week.
Watch Next
Whether next week's total reverts toward the roughly $325 Mn eight-week average or extends the two-week decline into a three-week trend, and which sectors keep attracting growth-stage checks while overall volume shrinks.
Entrackr · Jul 20-25, 2026 · Weekly funding report
CONFIDENCE 76PRIORITY 44

Signals to Watch

2 signals
Signals to WatchFood & FMCGFunding● Watch
⊙ TechStory, PeopleMatters, BW Marketing World, Entrackr · Jul 22-25, 2026Confirmed

Bira 91 founder Ankur Jain steps down and surrenders 17.8% stake in a ₹1,000 Cr debt settlement with nearly 30 lenders and investors

Fact
Ankur Jain, founder of Bira 91 parent B9 Beverages, stepped down from the company's board and relinquished his executive role on July 22, surrendering his family's 17.8% stake as part of a settlement with close to 30 lenders and investors, per multiple reports, confirmed in Entrackr's weekly funding roundup. The settlement resolves a two-year dispute as the debt-laden company, which had accumulated roughly ₹1,000 Cr in total debt, prepares for recapitalisation. B9 Beverages reported a net loss of ₹748.8 Cr on operating revenue of ₹638.5 Cr in FY24. Jain announced the move in a LinkedIn letter addressed to employees, investors and partners, giving up promoter-family executive control in exchange for relief from certain personal liabilities tied to the company's borrowings.
Interpretation
Bira 91 was, for a decade, the reference case for how a craft-beer D2C brand builds national distribution in India, its struggles now read as a cautionary counterpoint to today's other founder stories: The Bear House profitable from year one, BlueStone swinging to profit. A founder losing control of the company he built, over debt rather than a strategic sale, is a reminder that D2C funding-fuelled scale without a matching path to profitability eventually forces a reckoning, even for a brand with real market recognition.
Action
D2C founders currently scaling on debt or venture debt, particularly in capital-intensive categories like beverages and F&B, should treat this settlement's structure, stake surrender in exchange for personal liability relief, as a live template for what a distressed restructuring actually costs a founder, not just a headline to skim.
Watch Next
Who takes over B9 Beverages' board and operating control post-settlement, whether recapitalisation attracts new investors, and whether Bira 91 the brand survives the ownership change intact.
TechStory, PeopleMatters, BW Marketing World, Entrackr · Jul 22-25, 2026 · Founder letter, settlement disclosure
CONFIDENCE 74PRIORITY 40
Signals to WatchFood & FMCGQuick Commerce● Watch
⊙ Inc42 · Jul 24, 2026Confirmed

Zomato's food delivery business runs a 5.6% margin on order value, more than 9x Blinkit's 0.6%, which is why platforms keep re-entering food delivery

Fact
Eternal's food delivery business (Zomato) posted a Q1 FY27 adjusted EBITDA margin of 5.6% on net order value, compared to just 0.6% for its quick-commerce arm Blinkit, per an Inc42 analysis of the company's disclosures. Food delivery contributed ₹606 Cr to Eternal's consolidated adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, 6x Blinkit's ₹102 Cr, despite generating far less revenue, ₹3,100 Cr versus Blinkit's ₹15,664 Cr. Zomato's platform fee, launched at ₹2 per order in August 2023, has climbed to ₹14.9 per order in most major cities and has generated roughly ₹995 Cr cumulatively, including ₹154 Cr in Q1 FY27 alone. Restaurant advertising, sponsored listings priced ₹5-15 per click and banner ads at ₹30-300 per 1,000 impressions, is described as the segment's highest-margin revenue stream. Eternal CEO Deepinder Goyal has publicly dismissed low-commission entrants as unsustainable, positioning Bistro by Blinkit as the company's answer instead.
Interpretation
This is the number that explains yesterday's biggest story. Flipkart isn't entering food delivery because it's a large business, Blinkit's revenue dwarfs Zomato's food delivery arm, it's entering because food delivery is the more profitable one per rupee of order value. Rapido's zero-commission Ownly and Swiggy's value-tier Toing are both experimenting with the commission structure that generates this margin, and if either succeeds at scale, the 5.6% number this whole card is built on is exactly what gets renegotiated down.
Action
D2C food and beverage brands negotiating commission terms with Zomato or Swiggy should benchmark against the ₹14.9 per-order platform fee and the disclosed advertising rates here, both are real, quantified costs that sit on top of commission and are frequently under-discussed relative to the headline take rate.
Watch Next
Whether Flipkart's food delivery entry pricing undercuts Zomato's platform-fee-plus-advertising model or replicates it, and whether Rapido's Ownly or Swiggy's Toing gain enough share to force Zomato to defend its 5.6% margin.
Inc42 · Jul 24, 2026 · Company disclosure analysis
CONFIDENCE 79PRIORITY 36

From Today’s Brief

What to act on this week

01
Read PhonePe’s one-time-charge disclosures before reacting to the headline loss number. Track whether IPO-stage cost discipline changes merchant checkout pricing or settlement terms.
02
Benchmark offline expansion against The Bear House’s 12-14 month store payback and 2-month EBITDA breakeven. Launch new stores where online traction already exists rather than using retail to enter cold markets.
03
Model Instamart exposure against a scenario where Swiggy faces passive-outflow pressure. Nuvama estimates nearly $460 Mn at risk if the IOCC reclassification triggers index exclusion.
04
Lead fundraising conversations with profitability metrics, not just growth. Capital rewarded disclosed profit (BlueStone, The Bear House) over disclosed scale this week.
05
Treat the Bira 91 settlement as a template for what distressed restructuring actually costs a founder. Stake surrender in exchange for personal liability relief is the real structure, not just the headline.
06
Benchmark commission negotiations against Zomato’s disclosed ₹14.9 per-order platform fee and ad rates. These are real, quantified costs that sit on top of commission and are often under-discussed.
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