Brands
Pee Safe raises Rs 290 Crore as OrbiMed backs its next leap
NEW DELHI: Pee Safe has cleaned up big time. The New Delhi-based women’s hygiene and wellness brand has raised $ 32 million or about Rs 290 crore in a series C funding round led by OrbiMed, a global healthcare-focused private equity firm.
The round includes a mix of fresh capital and secondary share purchases from early backers. The money will help Pee Safe press the accelerator on offline retail expansion, dial up brand-led marketing, and deepen its presence across quick commerce platforms and major online marketplaces.
Founded by Vikas Bagaria and Rithish Kumar, Pee Safe operates in categories most brands once tiptoed around. Toilet hygiene, feminine care and intimate wellness are now its calling cards. The company claims an annualised net revenue run rate of over Rs 150 crore and, notably, is profitable. In India’s consumer startup landscape, that is still more exception than rule.
The founders say the brand was built to tackle taboos head-on, and the numbers suggest consumers are listening. Pee Safe today serves millions of women in India and overseas and is steadily widening its playbook in personal care and wellness.
“From day one, the focus was on strong fundamentals and long-term thinking,” said Bagaria. “That discipline has allowed us to scale without burning cash. OrbiMed shares our belief in the consumer healthcare opportunity and that makes this partnership a natural fit.”
Kumar added that the funding will help the company balance reach and speed. Offline shelves are a priority, but so is winning the fast lane of quick commerce and e-commerce.
OrbiMed is equally bullish. Senior managing director Sunny Sharma said Pee Safe has built a differentiated brand with loyal consumers in large, high-impact categories. Sharma, along with Sumona Chakraborty, will join the company’s board.
With fresh capital and a global healthcare investor on board, Pee Safe is setting out to make women’s hygiene not just mainstream, but truly mass.
Brands
Reserve Bank of India cancels Paytm Payments Bank licence
Central bank cites compliance failures; curbs tighten as wind-up looms
MUMBAI: India’s banking watchdog delivered its sharpest blow yet to Paytm Payments Bank, cancelling its licence and effectively ending its ability to operate as a bank under the law.
The Reserve Bank of India said the entity can no longer conduct banking business under the Banking Regulation Act, citing concerns that its affairs were not being run in the interest of depositors or the public and that it had failed to meet licence conditions.
The move escalates a crackdown that has been building for months. The bank had already been barred from onboarding new customers since March 11, 2022, and later faced restrictions on deposits, credit and wallet top-ups. In January 2024, the central bank ordered it to stop accepting fresh deposits, pointing to persistent non-compliance, including lapses in customer due diligence, use of funds and technology systems.
Operationally, the bank is now on a tight leash. It may process withdrawals of existing deposits and facilitate loan referrals through banking correspondents, but it cannot take fresh deposits.
The central bank said it would apply to the high court to wind up the bank.
Paytm sought to ringfence the fallout. In a regulatory filing, it said the licence cancellation applies to Paytm Payments Bank Limited, a separate entity, and should not be attributed to One 97 Communications. It added that there is no exposure or material business arrangement with the bank and that it operates independently, without Paytm’s board or management involvement.
“As informed earlier, Paytm (One 97 Communications Limited) and its services, which have been operating without interruption, will continue to operate uninterrupted. These include the Paytm app, Paytm UPI, Paytm Gold and all other services offered by its subsidiaries and associated companies,” the company said.
The distinction may reassure users of the app ecosystem, but the regulator’s verdict is unequivocal. After years of warnings, caps and curbs, the payments bank experiment at Paytm is being shut down—decisively, and with little room left to manoeuvre.
