Nov 18, 2025

Want this newsletter delivered to your inbox? SUBSCRIBE Thank you for subscribing to Morning Dispatch We'll soon meet in your inbox. Happy Tuesday! Blackstone is in talks to acquire a controlling stake in Jayshree Periwal International School (JPIS). This and more in today's ETtech Morning Dispatch. Also in the letter: ■ Snapdeal on the way to IPO ■ Byju's overseas trouble Jayshree Periwal, founder, Globetrotters Educational Innoventions US private equity giant Blackstone is in advanced talks to buy a majority stake in Jaipur-based Globetrotters Educational Innoventions, the parent of Jayshree Periwal International School (JPIS), sources told us. Deal details: Blackstone plans to use this investment as the foundation for a larger education platform in India, with an eventual outlay of $600-700 million. The proposed Globetrotters acquisition is estimated at $150-200 million. After the acquisition, Blackstone intends to expand JPIS beyond Rajasthan. The schools will continue under the existing leadership of founder Jayshree Periwal and CEO Ayush Periwal. JPIS financials: Globetrotters, which also runs six pre-schools, reported an operating revenue of Rs 135.2 crore in FY25. Net profit more than doubled to Rs 22.5 crore. Tell me more: Blackstone manages around $50 billion in India, and has a long history of backing education ventures. It was an early investor in Aakash Educational Services before its sale to Byju's and it acquired Simplilearn in 2021. Other private equity firms, including KKR and Kedara Capital, also hold sizable stakes in school chains such as Eurokids and Orchids International School. Big banks like HDFC, Axis offer to process more credit lines on UPI After a long wait, large banks are finally preparing to launch credit products on UPI. The credit line feature, introduced by NPCI in 2023 with significant buzz, is set for a real push, as top lenders gear up to participate. Driving the news: Suryoday Small Finance Bank and Karnataka Bank, both small-sized lenders, were early adopters, partnering with UPI applications Paytm and Navi, to offer credit lines on UPI. Now, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and a few others are readying their own rollouts, according to people familiar with the matter. Expanding the pie: For big lenders, UPI has become a powerful customer acquisition channel. Their plan is simple: offer small-ticket digital credit through partner UPI apps and build relationships with the next generation of borrowers. This includes customers who are new to credit or those who might not yet qualify for a traditional credit card. Impact on the sector: UPI remains India's default payment mode, but the ecosystem has begun showing signs of saturation . User growth is no longer as rapid as it once was, prompting NPCI to broaden UPI's utility with new credit-linked use cases. RuPay credit cards on UPI have already shown early success. Credit lines are now emerging as the next big growth lever. To support startups VCs tap into AI partnerships Indian venture capital (VC) funds are teaming up with Anthropic and OpenAI to help their portfolio companies access free credits, technical support, and the latest AI models. How it works: Both AI majors run startup programmes that offer funded startups free API credits, higher rate limits, and hands-on support from their technical teams. Lightspeed India, Accel India, Elevation Capital, Athera VP, Together Fund and Antler have already partnered with one or both companies. Perks: Krishna Mehra, AI partner at Elevation Capital, said the value goes beyond free credits. Once those are exhausted, founders can still access engineers and technical specialists through these tie-ups to fine-tune models or troubleshoot integrations. Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, cofounder of Upekkha, an AI accelerator that has partnered with OpenAI, added that early-stage startups often cannot afford cutting-edge models without such partnerships. Give and take: The arrangement benefits both Anthropic and OpenAI as well. India is a key growth market, and the surge in adoption provides a chance to test new use cases and gather early feedback, said Sudhir Reddy, cofounder at Divyam.ai. Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl, cofounders, AceVector Group Snapdeal parent gets Sebi nod for IPO: AceVector, the parent entity of ecommerce company Snapdeal, has received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for its initial public offering (IPO). Byju's in US court: Byju's Alpha, a US-based special purpose vehicle set up by Byju Raveendran and his affiliates, has been accused of round tripping $533 million , part of the $1.2 billion loan through OCI Limited, as per a filing made with the Delaware Bankruptcy Court. UPI payments surge in Oct: Merchant payment volumes on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) surged in October, led by high-frequency retail categories such as groceries, fast food, restaurants, and telecom. Financial services had the largest share by value. Acko posts loss: The company managed to grow its operating revenue by 34% to Rs 2,836 crore from Rs 2,106 crore a year prior. But increased expenses kept the insurance company's balance sheet in red, with FY25 net loss at Rs 424 crore. Global Picks We Are Reading ■ OpenAI's Fidji Simo plans to make ChatGPT way more useful—and have you pay for it ( Wired ) ■ ‘I'm nervous’: Klarna founder challenges trillion-dollar spending on AI ( FT ) ■ ChatGPT is huge in India. These locally focused startups found a way to compete ( Rest of World )