Business
Ronnie Screwvala: No funding winter for startups with real business models
There is no funding winter for startups and unicorns with great and real business models and for those building organisations to outlast all others, according to Ronnie Screwvala, Co-Founder and Chairperson of higher education platform upGrad.
In an interaction with Screwvala said that even today, there are investments being closed daily across multiple sectors, as the world faces a great deal of uncertainty over multiple macro-economic factors.
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
Q: How do you look at the current wave of ‘funding winter’ in India?
A: I am always amused to hear this phrase ‘funding winter’, heard it so often in the last 15 years. I always thought only God was responsible for the multiple seasons we enjoy each year but of late, the private equity (PE) investor community is taking that place with their own patent on seasons.
Summer is when you bask in your own self-made glory, excesses and intoxication of hyper valuations, where no one is accountable and everyone is told to make hay while the sun shines.
Monsoon (unique to India) is a realisation that when ‘it rains it pours’ — good or bad.
Then, of course, is Winter, the time to re-write the same 50-page presentation that in summer months said exactly the opposite — the time to reverse the same intoxication of fund raise, valuations and hyper so-called growth with ‘one time’ write downs and blame the whole world, war, inflation and more, that was lurking around the whole summer but no one wanted to put their glasses on.
Seriously though, there is no funding winter for companies with great and real business models and for those building organisations to outlast all others. Even today there are investments being closed daily across multiple sectors — maybe not with the maverick investors who may be.
Let’s face it, the markets have corrected 10-12 per cent, that’s it. Overall, it is still way higher than pre-Covid and if you look, many companies are at their all-time high. This is also the best time for real businesses and mature founders not inflated with valuations to go out there.
Every company worth its value has to go through multiple seasons, over and over again, and the right ones grow and mature from that.
Also in Winter, the most elegant of snow leopards come out to hunt and be predators, and so Winter is the time for those who want to build to outlast and who want to be predators.
Q: The edtech sector is witnessing layoffs. Is this because funding dried up or there is more to it?
A: There is absolutely no ‘dry spell’. Just because a few handful of start-ups got crazily funded, made them lose all focus, pushed to grow and diversify are now being forced by those same investors to wake up and smell the coffee, does not mean there is any dry spell.
They were misguided by themselves and their Board and now are correcting themselves, unfortunately at the cost of valued working colleagues, but they are the exception, not the trend at all.
Never in a 100 years of education and ‘LifeLongLearning’ has there been a more opportune time to disrupt scale and include millions of college learners and working professionals to re-invent, re-skill and get onto a new growth path in their careers. India is also placed brilliantly to open up the higher education market in Asia and around the world.
We, at upGrad, have stayed away from the hubris of distraction and focused on outcomes and impacting careers.
Let there be no mistake, there is no better time than now. K12 went through its Covid bump and it is now seeing much needed correction, but the majority of companies in edtech are just getting started.
Q: How do you look at the global macroeconomic conditions that have engulfed economies the world over?
There were some interesting themes across the three days at the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos. Here are some takeaways:
A) Those who were questioning the end of globalisation had not really spent enough time defining what that meant in the first place, before sounding the death knell on it. Globalisation is here to stay as the world consumer wants it that way. An 18-year-old Zayda in Bangladesh wants to own an Apple iPhone and the 22-year-old Amari in Zambia wants to graduate from a UK university.
While the world leaders have in their own way created barriers, through war or threats of war and more insular growth, the seven billion+ people on this planet will not let that happen and globalisation will prevail.
B) There is a reskilling revolution that is happening and will be a tsunami over the next decade across the world. Better education and lifelong learning — accessible and affordable to all — digitally can and will add a massive $8 trillion to the global GDP in this decade. Power shifts in countries will take place based on the workforce and their population being ready for the jobs of tomorrow and also be the learning capitals of the world.
C) India also has the place and the position to be the new voice of global leadership — largest democracy, fastest growing economy and a world leader with clarity, conviction and an agenda to put it at the centre-stage in the world.
D) There is no doubt that the world is going to pass through a very, very challenging time. With food being disproportionately available to countries around the world, the poor will get poorer even if the rich do not get richer. Covid is not leaving the planet in a hurry but has got us all hyper alert on health enough to take notice of even Monkeypox – something that was prevalent in Africa for years but ever since it hit the “western” world.
And the war is not going away in a hurry and it will be interesting to see how engaged the West stays as the war prolongs or will they lose interest if it does not serve their agendas.
The big question we also need to track is how polarised the world will get in the next two-three years. All of this will call for incredible world leaders and leadership in politics and in building business and organisations.
Business
Captive coal mines register robust output growth in April-September FY27

India’s captive mines produced 68.98 million tonnes (MT) of coal up to September 10 in the current financial year, up from 65.78 MT in the corresponding period of FY 2025-26, which represents a year-on-year growth of 5 per cent, or an additional 3.2 MT, and this also comes on a base that was itself 10.12 per cent higher than the previous year, the Coal Ministry said on Friday.
The gain has been recorded in the first five months of the current financial year, which include the monsoon, when mining and evacuation are at their most difficult, a ministry statement said.
Dispatch from captive mines has also been better than the previous year. Captive mines dispatched 75.68 MT against 71.43 MT last year, a growth of 5.94 per cent and an increase of 4.25 MT.
Provisional figures indicate the pace is picking up further as the monsoon begins to recede. In the ten days between September 1 and September 10, captive mines produced 4.12 MT and dispatched 4.21 MT.
New capacity is being added steadily to this base. Nine captive and commercial mines are expected to commence production during FY 2026-27, with a combined peak rated capacity of 20.67 MT. Three of these, with a peak capacity of 7.51 MT, have already started production during the current year. The remaining six are expected to commence production soon during the year, according to the statement.
On this footing, production from captive mines is expected to cross 190 MT in FY 2026-27. Together with commercial mines, the two segments are expected to exceed 228 MT during the current financial year, the statement said.
Captive mines have been a mainstay of coal production, and their output has grown steadily, with annual production recording a robust 10.1 per cent rise from 167.44 million tonnes (MT) in FY 2024-25 to 184 MT in FY 2025-26.
Along with commercial mines, which produced around 26 MT, the captive and commercial segment together accounted for 210 MT in FY 2025-26 against 190.95 MT the previous year.
Captive and commercial mines account for about 21 per cent of total domestic coal production, which stood at 1,039 MT in FY 2025-26 and has remained above one billion tonnes for the second year running. This performance has carried into the current financial year, the statement added.
Business
Indian equities expected to see re‑rating as H2 earnings pick up: Report

Indian equities could be set for a re‑rating as second‑half earnings accelerate and domestic institutional capital returns, a report said on Friday.
The report from Omniscience Capital said that the consolidation phase should be treated as an accumulation window rather than as an opportunity to chase recent performance.
The firm said that opportunities lie in businesses benefiting from structural capital expenditure, energy transition and infrastructure development.
The report cautioned that pockets of the mid‑ and small‑cap segments remain richly valued and urged selective deployment into high‑quality growth businesses available at discounted valuations.
Opportunities are concentrated in businesses exposed to sustained growth and operating leverage but available at favourable valuations, the report noted.
Key areas include banking and financial services, infrastructure and power, and business services, supported by resilient credit growth, rising electricity demand and a recovery in corporate capex.
The moderation in Indian equity valuations has led to renewed institutional interest, with foreign investors turning net buyers on multiple occasions after a two-year moderation in valuations.
Domestic fundamentals remain supportive, with FY27 real GDP growth estimated at around 7 per cent even though crude oil prices call for caution.
With direct, retaliatory military actions between the US and Iran, the hope for a diplomatic resolution through a longer-term peace deal has taken a severe blow, the report forecasted.
“Multi-year forward earnings execution is fully priced in, leaving prospective returns barely near the discount rate while exposing investors to severe de-rating risk,” said Ashwin K. Shami, President & Chief Portfolio Manager, OmniScience Capital.
The firm saw a valuation disconnect across market capitalisations, with Nifty Smallcap 250 and Midcap 150 trading at trailing P/E multiples of around 34-fold and 30-fold, respectively, compared with around 20-fold for Nifty 100.
Global equity markets continue to contend with elevated risk-free rates, with US 10-year Treasury yields near one-year highs of 4.6 per cent-4.7 per cent, while geopolitical tensions have added volatility to crude oil and commodities. The US Federal Reserve’s policy decision on September 16 remains a near-term factor for Treasury yields and global risk appetite.
Business
SIP inflows hit record Rs 32,297 crore in August, gold ETF inflows jump 67 pc to Rs 2,596.70 crore: AMFI

New Delhi, Sep 10: Inflows into gold Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) surged nearly 67 per cent in August 2026 as investors increased their exposure to the precious metal amid a sharp rise in domestic gold prices, according to the latest data released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) on Thursday.
Gold ETFs received net inflows of Rs 2,596.70 crore in August, compared with Rs 1,559 crore in July. The category recorded positive inflows for the third consecutive month, reflecting continued investor interest in gold-linked investment products.
The increase in gold ETF investments came as domestic gold prices on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) rose 7.7 per cent during August, making the precious metal one of the key investment avenues during the month.
Silver ETFs also continued to attract investors, recording net inflows of Rs 1,270.63 crore in August.
In the equity mutual fund segment, actively managed equity schemes saw net inflows rise to Rs 29,328.62 crore in August from Rs 24,697.39 crore in July, indicating sustained investor participation despite fluctuations in the broader market.
Overall, the mutual fund industry recorded net inflows of Rs 41,353.60 crore in August, significantly lower than the Rs 2.35 lakh crore recorded in July. The sharp month-on-month decline was largely influenced by flows in the debt fund segment.
Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) contributions, however, continued to strengthen and reached a record high of Rs 32,297 crore in August, compared with Rs 31,961 crore in July. The steady rise in SIP contributions highlights continued retail investor participation in mutual funds.
Debt funds registered a net outflow of Rs 8,127.32 crore in August, reversing from a net inflow of Rs 1.87 lakh crore in July.
Meanwhile, the mutual fund SIP inflows increased marginally month-on-month to a record high of Rs 32,297 crore in August, compared with Rs 31,961 crore in July. On a year-on-year basis, SIP inflows rose 14 per cent from Rs 28,265 crore recorded in August 2025.
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