😃 The Rise of the Smile Economy

PLUS: YC’s India Jackpot

Author

Ruchirr Sharma
November 14, 2025

 

Good morning and Happy Friday. Hope you have good weekend when it arrives 😎 

Ruchirr Sharma & Shatakshi Sharmaa  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HEALTHCARE

For years, Indian beauty brands have focused on glowing skin and glossy hair. Now, Honasa Consumer, the parent of Mamaearth, wants to make your smile the next beauty frontier.

The company believes “oral beauty” could grow into a $700 million market by 2030, driven by a shift in how Indians view self-care. Oral care, once limited to hygiene and freshness, is evolving into a lifestyle statement. As CEO Varun Alagh puts it, “Your smile will be a core part of your beauty.”

This new category mirrors how skincare and haircare once moved up the value chain — from basic function to targeted wellness and finally to aesthetics. Whitening pens, mouth serums, and chic packaging are beginning to transform oral care from something hidden in a cabinet to something proudly displayed on a bathroom shelf.

To get ahead of the curve, Honasa has invested ₹10 crore for a 25% stake in Fang Oral Care, a young brand experimenting with premium, design-led oral products. The company hopes to use its playbook of scaling niche ideas into mass movements, much like it did with Mamaearth and The Derma Co.

Honasa reported ₹538 crore in quarterly revenue and returned to profit, signaling that India’s beauty consumers are no longer buying just function or freshness. They’re buying confidence, expression, and identity.

And soon, that might just start with a brighter smile.

IPO

Silicon Valley just cashed in on India’s startup dream.

Y Combinator (YC), the legendary accelerator that once backed Airbnb and Stripe, has scored its first major Indian public market win through the blockbuster IPO of Groww, the Bengaluru-based wealthtech platform.

YC’s 12% stake in Groww is now worth around ₹8,000 crore, even after selling a small slice (2%) during the IPO to pocket ₹1,056 crore. The listing, which valued Groww at ₹82,540 crore, has turned the company’s four cofounders into billionaires on paper, collectively holding ₹20,000 crore in shares.

This is a milestone moment. YC entered India quietly in the mid-2010s but ended up backing some of the country’s biggest digital success stories — Meesho, Razorpay, and Zepto, all of which are now queuing up for IPOs. Meesho’s public offering could raise up to ₹6,600 crore, while Razorpay and Zepto are preparing their own market debuts.

YC’s golden touch transformed how early-stage funding worked in India. Between 2015 and 2021, it poured capital into dozens of startups each year, fueling India’s tech explosion. Though its new bets have slowed recently, the returns from its early ones are now paying off spectacularly.

For YC, Groww’s IPO isn’t just a windfall. It’s validation that India has matured from being a promising startup destination to a proven exit market. The accelerator that taught Silicon Valley how to scale startups has now taught Indian founders how to go public — and make history.

GENERAL OVERVIEW

🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

☀️ China’s Green Power Play - As the US retreats from climate action and Europe struggles to stay on track, China is quietly reshaping the global clean energy map. Flooding developing nations with affordable solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, it has become the world’s renewable superpower. From Brazil to India to Vietnam, countries are embracing Chinese green tech to cut costs and boost energy security. Beijing isn’t just exporting hardware—it’s exporting an industrial strategy, investing billions in local manufacturing. While critics see it as dominance, others view it as progress: a new era where economic growth and climate action finally move in the same direction.

🔋 Adani’s Battery Power Move - Adani Total Gas clarified that reports about India’s largest battery storage project in Gujarat are not linked to its operations. Instead, the initiative belongs to the broader Adani Group, which has announced its entry into the battery energy storage systems (BESS) business. The group plans to build a 1,126 MW/3,530 MWh BESS facility at Khavda, Gujarat, home to the world’s largest renewable energy park. Slated for commissioning by March, the project will feature over 700 battery containers and is expected to be India’s biggest storage installation, reinforcing Adani’s growing presence in clean energy and grid stability solutions.

HEADLINES

🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

What’s happening in India (and around the world 🌍️)

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