Mr. Dilip Modi, Founder & CEO of Spice Money
“2024 has been a landmark year for the fintech industry, achieving unprecedented milestones in innovation and financial inclusion. India now boasts 26 fintech unicorns, including one decacorn, with registered startups surging from 2,100 in 2021 to 10,200 in 2024 and a combined valuation of $125 billion. Payments and lending categories attracted the maximum amount of funding, accounting for 85% of capital raised, while UPI surpassed 10 billion transactions in August, underscoring its transformative impact.
Spice Money is proud to contribute to this remarkable growth with offerings like biometric banking through AEPS, assisted bill payments, cash collection, and the rollout of UPI for rural India. Our foray into MSME lending and a robust 14-lakh-strong Adhikari network has extended essential financial services to 95% of rural pin codes and 2.39 lakh villages. In 2024, we impacted over 2.5 crore rural customers monthly, fostering trust, financial accessibility, and economic empowerment across Bharat.
Looking ahead to 2025, India is on track to have approximately 150 fintech unicorns with a combined valuation projected to reach $500 billion by 2030. The industry’s future lies in driving scalable and inclusive solutions through collaboration with policymakers and public partners, fostering sustainable and impactful growth for millions across the country.
At Spice Money, we remain committed to advancing Bharat’s financial inclusion through tech-driven solutions, ensuring compliance, and enhancing fraud risk management while prioritizing sustainable and profitable growth. A supportive regulatory framework and robust public-private collaboration are essential to addressing the unique needs of rural India. With rural fintech leading India’s digital revolution, Spice Money aims to build a resilient, inclusive financial ecosystem that uplifts communities and accelerates economic progress.”
Shubham Singhal, CEO and Co-founder, Dot Media
As we wrap up 2024, it’s clear that brand collaborations with influencers from Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities have been on the rise. And for good reason – these influencers have a powerful ability to shape how we think about brands and influence our shopping habits. By driving trends, building trust, and impacting our purchasing decisions, influencers have played a crucial role in creating genuine connections and driving sales. So, what’s next? As we step into 2025, I’m convinced that purpose-driven marketing will be the key to success in the Advertising and Media industry. Consumers are increasingly looking for authenticity, inclusivity, and sustainability from brands. Here at Dot Media, we’re committed to creating meaningful connections between influencers, audiences, and brands. Our focus will be on building communities, creating personalized experiences, and developing valuable content that drives engagement and loyalty. We’ll also be prioritizing our existing customer base, and influencers will play a vital role in helping us create exclusive content, offers, and experiences that keep our customers engaged and loyal.
George Gerchow, Head of Trust, MongoDB
“As tech vendors added AI capabilities to their offerings in 2024, we have seen IT departments adopt and release these features. This has resulted in small to moderate business improvements, but not the seismic shift that might have been implied by the hype. Leaders are still trying to crack the code of how AI will bring either significant productivity, reduction in operational complexity, or improvements in employee experience.
2025 will start to show more meaningful progress towards using AI to create business impact. First, AI will show value for employees to “shift left” and perform tasks of greater value and complexity, while digital AI agents will be able to answer the typical questions handled by front line support teams. Bots will be ubiquitous to all organizations to answer inquiries ranging from Sales account summaries to HR benefits. Second, the introduction of reasoning capabilities will ultimately be a game changer, but each organization will need to assess how to utilize it. 2025 will mark the beginning, but not the end, of that journey.
2025 will also show the development of permission-aware RAG layers. For AI to deliver the most value, it has to blend public data with private data found within the walls of the company. The private data has to respect any permissions and privileges of the person running the AI query which are typically set within the application or service hosting the source data.”
Rajesh Khandagale, SVP- National Pension System, KFin Technologies
“The National Pension System (NPS) has shown remarkable growth in 2024, achieving a 37% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) to reach INR 2.76 Lakh crore, driven by the contributions of 58 lakh non-government subscribers. Recent enhancements, including increased tax deduction limits and changes in withdrawal and remittance policies, have made NPS more attractive. Additionally, the introduction of NPS Vatsalya as a savings product for children has broadened its appeal.
In 2024, NPS has continued to offer competitive returns, with top-performing schemes delivering returns between 9% and 12% per annum. The Union Budget 2024 introduced significant enhancements, such as increased tax deductions for employer contributions and the launch of ‘NPS Vatsalya’ for minors.
Looking ahead to 2025, we expect a surge in retail participation, driven by enhanced digital engagement and education initiatives. KFin Technologies is committed to innovating and improving its services to support the evolving needs of NPS investors, focusing on technology integration and customer experience enhancement. In the non-government sector, KFintech is growing at twice the rate of industry growth. Our extensive experience, having handled over 1,200 IPOs and servicing over 150 million investors, positions us well to continue leading in this space..”
Giridhar G, Chief Business Officer – Corporate Registry, KFin Technologies
The Indian IPO market has demonstrated remarkable resilience in 2024, standing out as a global leader despite subdued trends elsewhere. With India capturing a quarter of global IPO volumes and boasting the highest number of mainboard listed companies, the market’s performance has been exceptional.
India’s IPO market has raised a record-breaking ₹1.19 lakh crore ($14 billion) in 2024, driven by strong investor demand and impressive returns from recent IPOs. This surge has solidified 2024 as a banner year for Indian IPOs, with significant listings like Bajaj Housing Finance Limited and Hyundai Motor India Ltd, India’s largest IPO till date.
Looking ahead to 2025, we foresee a record-breaking IPO market, driven by strong economic momentum, robust retail participation, and sectoral diversity, including the resurgence of tech and housing finance. As one of the key registrars in the Indian market, we recognize that the surge in IPO activity demands highly efficient back-end processes. We are dedicated to leveraging cutting-edge technology, advanced analytics, and AI to further simplify the IPO journey for issuers and investors alike. With our proven expertise in managing over 80 IPOs in 2024 and serving a growing base of more than 150 million investors, we are poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of India’s dynamic capital markets”
Mario Sylvester Roche, Chief Operating Officer – Alternatives & Wealth Solutions
“The Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) industry in India saw significant growth in 2024, with total commitments reaching USD 12 trillion. This was driven by increased interest from institutional and high-net-worth individual (HNWI) investors. SEBI’s new regulations enhanced transparency and governance, boosting investor confidence.
In 2024, institutional investments in AIFs rose as organizations sought better returns compared to traditional investments. KFin Technologies is enhancing its technological capabilities to streamline operations and improve investor engagement. Our platform, XAlt, built on modern SaaS architecture, has reduced time to value and simplified development processes.
Looking ahead to 2025, the AIF industry is expected to continue growing, with more allocations from institutional and retail investors. We anticipate innovative fund structures within the AIF framework to meet evolving market demands. Ongoing regulatory support from SEBI will further bolster investor confidence. As market conditions evolve, AIFs will likely emphasize diversification across asset classes and geographies to mitigate risks and enhance returns.”
Vinay Chhabra, Co-Founder & Managing Director, AceCloud, a brand of RTDS
“2024 has been a pivotal year for India’s cloud and AI ecosystem, catalyzed by rapid adoption and government initiatives under the IndiaAI Mission, which allocated over INR 10,300 crore. The development of high-performance compute infrastructure, including more than 10,000 GPUs, aims to position India as a leader in AI while addressing talent and compute shortages that challenged AI-readiness for many organizations. This focus on GPU-powered AI is reshaping sectors and accelerating the adoption of cloud technologies to streamline processes and reduce costs.
However, challenges remain, particularly around infrastructure scaling and the high costs of GPUs, which continue to impact AI implementation. As per International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) AI Preparedness Index 2024, that assesses AI preparedness in 174 countries by examining factors such as digital infrastructure, human capital and labour markets, innovation and economic integration, etc., India ranks 72nd with a rating of 0.49. Advanced economies such as United States has a rating of 0.77, Singapore – 0.80, and China ranks 31st with a rating of 0.63 in this index highlighting AI adoption and implementation maturity.
Looking to 2025, overcoming these bottlenecks will be crucial. We envision expanded GPU accessibility, public-private partnerships for cloud infrastructure growth, and AI democratization through initiatives like India’s Data Labs and IndiaAI Innovation Centres. As AI adoption grows, enhanced cybersecurity frameworks will also play a vital role in safeguarding cloud data, which is integral to maintaining trust and enabling advanced analytics.
AceCloud is committed to aligning with India’s digital ambitions by delivering scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud solutions. By fostering innovation in cloud and GPU technology, we’re preparing to empower enterprises with the tools they need to harness the full potential of AI in the coming years. Through these advancements, we’re building a resilient, future-ready digital ecosystem that positions India as a global technology leader.”
By- Anand Srinivasan, Managing Director of Covestro (India) Private Limited
2024 has been a pivotal year for India’s drive towards sustainable growth, with industries and businesses increasingly embracing innovation and environmental stewardship. As global challenges like climate change take centre stage, the adoption of green technologies, circular economy models, and energy-efficient solutions has accelerated across sectors. This progress underscores India’s commitment to balancing economic development with ecological responsibility.
At Covestro (India), sustainability is at the core of everything we do. This year, we made significant strides in advancing our mission of making the world a brighter place by delivering innovative, high-performance materials for industries such as automotive, construction, and electronics. Through collaborations with key stakeholders, we prioritized resource efficiency, renewable energy integration, and the development of products that promote recyclability and reduce carbon footprints.
As we step into 2025, our focus remains on driving sustainable innovation and empowering our partners to achieve their ESG goals. Together, we aim to co-create solutions that address the world’s most pressing challenges while fostering a future that is resilient, inclusive, and environmentally conscious.