PM Modi wants BRICS to help 100 startups scale yearly; Shuddh Swad turns Bihari thekua into a Rs 1 Cr D2C business

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on BRICS countries to help 100 startups every year expand into other member markets. The startup push is also finding its way into formal BRICS policy, with the New Delhi Declaration backing a startup incubator network and weighing an innovation fund. It also proposes deeper cooperation on DPI, AI, cross-border payments and MSME financing.

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel has urged the government to enforce a uniform sovereign tech stack policy to process Indian data locally, citing current monthly consumer data consumption of 38–40 GB.

At the Global Fintech Fest 2026, Rahul Vatts, Group CRO and Director of Corporate Affairs at Bharti Airtel, clarified that local data residency should not be conflated with data sovereignty. He emphasized that true data sovereignty is achieved by maintaining control over data through a sovereign technology stack.

The company is currently building a series of 100-megawatt data centres over the next couple of years and is betting big on demand for sovereign cloud infrastructure required for strategic reasons in the country.

With AI models posing significant threats to banking and finance, companies are doubling down on their security. Speaking at GFF 2026, Navi founder Sachin Bansal highlighted how the company is deploying AI across its operations, focusing on credit risk and fraud-detection models, customer support, and software engineering.

However, Bansal stressed that AI access alone will not serve as a competitive moat as the technology becomes easier to use. Instead, lasting value comes from solving complex problems and building deep in-house capabilities across the financial services value chain. Navi prefers owning end-to-end decisioning and risk models rather than operating as a mere distribution platform.

Meanwhile, Gen Z consumers are fueling the rise of Flipkart Minutes, the quick commerce service of the ecommerce giant. The company grew 4X year-on-year and expanded to nearly 1,200 micro-fulfilment centres across more than 150 cities. Gen Z has emerged as the fastest-growing customer cohort, with the customer base growing nearly 5X y-o-y.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged BRICS member nations to create structured pathways allowing 100 startups from the grouping to scale into member markets every year. Speaking at the BRICS Business Forum in New Delhi, Modi tasked the BRICS Business Council with reviewing this target alongside identifying the top 10 trade barriers and facilitating 1,000 new business partnerships annually. The New Delhi Declaration also backs a startup incubator network and weighs a BRICS Startup Innovation Fund, alongside proposals around DPI, AI and cross-border payments.

West Bengal-based D2C food startup Shuddh Swad has reached Rs 1 crore in revenue within its first year of operations after starting with an initial capital of Rs 10,000. Founded in 2025 by Jayanta Karmakar and Kailash Bouri, the bootstrapped venture makes preservative-free Bihari thekua using traditional household recipes.

Operating without institutional funding, the 40-member startup sells through its own website, major e-commerce channels, and quick-commerce platforms. Having sold over 40,000 units across three variants, Shuddh Swad is currently developing R&D pipelines to commercialize traditional regional recipes from other Indian states.

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