Sona Comstar brings rare earths home
Grammarly does AI, logistics operator plans IPO, & digital devotion takes off.
🗓 Morning, folks!
Markets closed mostly in the green on Tuesday after a quiet, rangebound session. Sensex and Nifty edged up slightly, lifted by banking stocks and a few heavyweight gainers. But broader sentiment was cautious with Midcaps breaking a seven-day winning streak as traders locked in profits.
💡 Spotlight: with a July 9 deadline looming, Washington and New Delhi are trying to hammer out a bilateral trade deal that’s been years in the making. The pressure? A 90-day pause on tariff hikes is about to expire, and the U.S. wants India to lower duties on farm goods and allow more genetically modified imports.
Talks have gained steam, with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar currently in the U.S. for the QUAD Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. If they land a deal, it could reset the trade narrative between the two countries and ease long-standing tensions on market access and tariffs.
1 Big thing: Sona Comstar gears up for local magnets ⚙️
Sona Comstar, India’s largest importer of rare earth magnets, is set to start making them in India.
Sona Comstar designs and manufactures precision automotive systems for EVs and traditional vehicles, making it a critical global supplier in the shift toward electrified mobility.
Context: China recently tightened its grip on the global rare earth supply. Beijing slapped new defence-related export controls on seven critical elements like samarium, terbium, and dysprosium, metals that power everything from EVs and wind turbines to fighter jets and missiles.
FYI: China refines nearly 90% of the world’s rare earths, and when restrictions hit, automakers globally saw costs spike, margins shrink, and production plans get shaky. Many scrambled to line up alternate suppliers in the US, Australia, and Africa, and began investing in recycling and new materials to hedge their bets.
India’s move: India doesn’t want to be caught off guard again. The government is pushing hard to scale up local magnet production and cut dependence on Chinese imports.
Zoom out: Sona Comstar has been on a diversification streak as it recently acquired Escorts Kubota’s Indian railways business to branch out beyond auto. This year, it expects most revenue to come from India. Looking ahead, it plans to deepen ties with customers in China, Japan, and South Korea, building a more resilient, global playbook for the future.
Big theme: India has the world’s fifth-largest rare earth reserves and is also the third-largest car market. But refining capacity is mostly absent. Now, incentives are rolling out to kickstart domestic manufacturing.
2. Apollo Hospitals to spin off pharmacy & digital health units 🏥
Apollo Hospitals’ board has approved the spin-off & separate listing of its omni-channel pharmacy & digital health business.
The listing is expected within 18-21 months as part of their broader reorganisation strategy.
Breaking it down:
Apollo is spinning off its omni-channel pharmacy and digital health business into a separate entity.
This new entity will merge with Apollo HealthCo and Keimed Pvt Ltd, a major wholesale pharma distributor.
The resulting platform will house Apollo 24/7, offline pharmacies, telehealth services, and Keimed’s distribution business under one roof.
Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited (AHEL) shareholders will receive 195.2 shares of the new entity for every 100 shares they currently hold.
The why: the transaction will create India’s largest integrated omnichannel healthcare ecosystem, with projected FY25 revenue of ₹16,300 crore, and an expected run rate of ₹25,000 crore by FY27.
More on listings,
Shadowfax has filed its DRHP with SEBI under the confidential route to raise ₹2,000-2,500 crore through an IPO.
Founded in 2015, Shadowfax Technologies is one of India’s leading logistics and last-mile delivery platforms.
The deets: the public offering will be a mix of fresh issue and an offer-for-sale (OFS) by existing shareholders. According to Reuters, the company is aiming for a valuation of around ₹8,500 crore.
3. Grammarly buys Superhuman to expand AI suite 💪
Grammarly is going beyond grammar, snapping up AI-powered email tool Superhuman to build out its productivity suite.
Superhuman is an email app that helps you write, read, and reply to emails much faster by using smart shortcuts and AI-powered tools.
The deets: Superhuman has raised over $110 million from top investors like Andreessen Horowitz and IVP.
Grammarly, flush with $1 billion in new funding from General Catalyst, sees email as the next frontier. The acquisition follows its purchase of Coda, a platform for AI-powered collaboration. Together, these moves signal a big shift as Grammarly aims to be more than a writing tool.
Zoom out: Grammarly boasts 40 million daily users and $700 million+ in revenue. The company is even eyeing a rebrand to reflect its evolution into a full-fledged AI productivity suite covering email, calendars, tasks, and team collaboration.
4. AppsForBharat’s ₹175 cr devotion drive 🛕
AppsForBharat, the parent firm of the devotion platform Sri Mandir has raised ₹175 crore in a Series C funding.
The deets: founded in November 2020, the startup serves Hindu devotees with online prayers and the ability to make offerings virtually to Indian temples. The app has garnered over 40 million downloads since its launch.
The why: the funds will be used to invest in over 20 temple towns including Varanasi, Ujjain, Ayodhya, & Haridwar, to set up logistics hubs near temples to handle delivery of prasad and ritual items.
The Hindu temple economy is estimated to be worth around $40 billion, making up 2.3% of the nation’s GDP. Yet, most prayer services and offerings stay offline, scattered, and unorganised.
AppsForbharat aims to address these challenges through its platform, Sri Mandir.
5. Stocks that kept us interested 🚀
1. Kalpataru Projects lands orders worth ₹989 cr 🤝
Kalpataru Projects International secured new orders worth ₹989 crore.
The deets: the company is one of the largest specialised EPC players, engaged in power transmission and distribution, buildings & factories, water supply, and irrigation.
The new orders are for power transmission and distribution projects in overseas markets. With this, the company’s total order intake for FY26 so far has reached ₹7,150 crore.
Zoom out: earlier, the company had secured ₹3,789 crore worth of orders in the Buildings & Factories segment in India. In May, it received additional power T&D orders worth ₹2,372 crore, both domestically and internationally.
Meanwhile, the real estate developer had also launched a ₹1,590 crore IPO, which saw decent investor interest. The issue was subscribed 2.26 times during its three-day bidding period.
2. BEL ramps up defence play 🔥
Bharat Electronics gained after securing fresh orders worth ₹528 crore.
The deets: the latest contracts include a range of defence and strategic systems such as radars, jammers, shelters, and more.
In June alone, the company secured four major orders totaling nearly ₹4,000 crore.
On June 6, BEL also announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding - MoU with Tata Electronics to jointly develop indigenous electronics and semiconductor solutions.
Why it matters: the robust order pipeline reflects growing investor confidence. More importantly, these contracts (radars, jammers, and other defence systems) support the government's push for indigenisation under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.
Zoom out: India’s defence sector is on the cusp of transformational growth, backed by a record ₹6.81 trillion allocation in the 2025-26 Union Budget, accounting for 13% of total central expenditure.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
⬆️ Upping the IPO: Hero Motors refiled its DRHP with SEBI and has increased its issue size to ₹1,200 crore from the earlier ₹900 cr.
🤒 The IPO fever: Indian firms could raise $2.4 billion through IPOs in July, potentially marking the strongest month since December.
🔌 India’s chip boost: Kaynes Semicon signed its first major client, US-based Alpha & Omega Semiconductor to deliver a Made-in-India chip sample for testing.
🔧 HCL x Open AI: IT giant HCLTech has inked a multi-year deal with OpenAI to help businesses around the world adopt generative AI faster and at scale.
That’s a wrap! Don’t let the weekday blues get to you.
And if you’d like to place your brand on this newsletter, let us know.
Hit that 💚 if you liked this issue.