States chase chip billions; Porter’s unicorn round

Happy Friday! Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat are moving swiftly to attract major electronic component manufacturers with new incentive schemes. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.

Also in the letter:
■ Peeyush Ranjan joins Meraki
■ Prosus’s $8.6 billion India bet
■ AI pilots' scalability concerns

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Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat are drafting new incentive schemes to attract large-scale electronic component manufacturers to establish factories in their respective states.

Current situation:

• Tamil Nadu was among the first movers, announcing a programme to match incentives under the Centre’s new Electronic Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS) after the government rolled out a Rs 23,000 crore package to boost the electronics ecosystem.
• Gujarat is fast becoming a hub for electronics and semiconductors, with projects from Micron, CG Power, and Tata Electronics in Dholera and Sanand.
• Uttar Pradesh is positioning itself as a key player, leveraging Noida’s growing status as an electronics manufacturing hub.
• Karnataka already has a competitive Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) policy. “We might make some tweaks and additions, but it remains competitive,” said Gunjan Krishna, Karnataka’s commissioner for industrial development.

Also Read: Tata Electronics to set up display semiconductor manufacturing plant in Gujarat with Taiwan’s PSMC & Himax

Tell me more: Karnataka has already embedded electronic component manufacturing into its Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) policy.

“We might make some tweaks and additions to the policy in light of the latest developments but it is a competitive policy as it stands,” said Gunjan Krishna, Karnataka commissioner for industrial development.

Future outlook: The Centre aims to draw Rs 30,000 crore in investments and create over 60,000 jobs over six years, building on the smartphone PLI scheme’s success. The goal is to double India’s 20% value addition in electronics within five years.

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(L-R) Pranav Goel and Uttam Digga, cofounders, Porter

On-demand logistics platform Porter has raised $200 million in a funding round led by private equity firms Kedaara Capital and Wellington Management.

Deal details:

• The round, comprising both primary and secondary transactions, has propelled Porter into the unicorn club with a $1.1–$1.2 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the matter.
• Early investor Peak XV Partners has fully exited as part of the deal. Kae Capital and Lightrock have partially sold their stakes.
• Vitruvian Partners, an existing backer, also participated.
• Approximately $140–150 million of the total came from secondary sales, with shares acquired from early-stage investors.

Valuation jump:

• Porter’s latest valuation is more than double of $500 million at which it was valued in a 2021 round led by Tiger Global.
• The valuation surge follows significant business growth for the Bengaluru-based company.
• Operating revenue for FY25 exceeded Rs 4,000 crore, up from Rs 2,766 crore in FY24, per sources.

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Peeyush Ranjan, former CTO, Flipkart

Peeyush Ranjan, former Flipkart CTO and long-time Google executive, has joined Mukesh Bansal’s startup incubator, Meraki Labs, as a partner.

Driving the news: Based in San Francisco, Ranjan will help expand Meraki’s footprint in Silicon Valley as the firm intensifies its focus on artificial intelligence (AI). He will work closely with entrepreneurs at the incubator to shape their technology and product strategies, he told us.

“A big part of my role will be to guide Meraki’s AI vision… What kind of companies we should start, what are the problems that we will be great at solving?... Not just applying AI for the sake of it,” he added.

Background:

• Prior to joining Meraki Labs, Ranjan was general manager and VP of engineering at Google, where he led teams behind AI products such as Google Assistant and parts of the Gemini app.
• Bansal, cofounder of fashion portal Myntra, has also backed Groww, Skyroot Aerospace, and Lyskraft – a fashion startup by former Zomato executive Mohit Gupta – through Meraki Labs.

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Fabricio Bloisi, CEO, Prosus

Prosus has invested $8.6 billion in India, remains a key market: CEO Fabricio Bloisi: Dutch tech investor Prosus has invested $8.6 billion in India and continues to view the country as a key growth market, CEO Fabricio Bloisi said in a letter to shareholders on Thursday.

Why Megabucks AI pilots may not guarantee scalable businesses for technology companies: Tech firms are investing heavily into AI pilots to build competitive moats and futureproof revenues. However, these outlays may not always translate into scalable businesses, industry experts and founders told ET.

As Google layoffs continue, a look at Big Tech job cuts in 2025: Tech major Google laid off hundreds from its global business unit earlier this week, extending the wave of tech job cuts that began in 2023. Big Tech firms, including Meta, Microsoft, and Apple have also trimmed headcount as accelerate investments in artificial intelligence (AI).

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■ US scraps Biden-era rule that aimed to limit exports of AI chips (FT)

■ AI’s threat to Google just got real (WSJ)

■ Sequoia leads $1.5B tender offer for sales automation startup Clay (TechCrunch)