Brands
Salad Days expands to Mumbai, unveils 2024 growth plans
Mumbai: Salad Days, a trailblazing healthy foods brand announces the opening of its first cloud kitchen in Mumbai’s Chandivali area, located in Andheri East. Following this, the brand is set to establish additional kitchens across Mumbai, targeting high-potential zones such as Andheri West, Lower Parel, and Khar. With plans to open four cloud kitchens in the first phase of Mumbai expansion, its goal is to acquire half a million customers in the city over the next two years. This step aligns with the brand’s larger growth strategy of marking its presence in three major geographies including Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, and Mumbai.
Expressing his excitement for the Mumbai expansion, Salad Days founder & CEO Varun Madan said, “The launch of our first cloud kitchen in Mumbai is a big milestone for Salad Days and sets the right tone for our growth plans for 2024. Mumbai, with its diverse and discerning audience, presents a thrilling opportunity for us to bring our various offerings to its residents and align with their food habits. Drawing from our successful experiences in Delhi NCR and Bengaluru, we are confident that our quality, consistency, and taste will win the hearts of our valued customers in Mumbai as well. We are also exploring strategic avenues to raise funds that will further support our expansion and enhance our presence in key markets.”
Since its establishment in 2014, Salad Days has been at the forefront of transforming the culinary landscape of India, by championing a healthier lifestyle through its delectable and nutritious meals. The brand’s vision is to make salads and other wholesome choices a regular part of Indian households’ dining habits. Salad Days demonstrates its commitment to quality and sustainability through a network of 15 strategically located cloud kitchens in the Delhi-NCR and Bangalore regions. Additionally, the brand operates two central kitchens and an organic farm in Vasant Kunj (Delhi), cultivating a variety of fresh produce for its menu.
Salad Days boasts an extensive and health-focused menu, featuring salads, grain bowls, baguette sandwiches, pita pockets, overnight oatmeal bowls, soups, cold-pressed juices, smoothies, and desserts. Also catering to diverse dietary preferences such as Keto-friendly, vegan, detoxifying, gluten-free, and lactose-free, the brand currently sells its offerings through home channels as well as India’s leading food delivery aggregators, Swiggy and Zomato. Salad Days is dedicated to making affordable, healthy, and delicious food options accessible to a broader customer base throughout the country.
Brands
Google nears Nvidia in race for world’s most valuable company
Market cap gap narrows as Google hits $4.65 trillion, Nvidia at $4.86 trillion.
MUMBAI: In the AI gold rush, even the giants are sprinting and Google is suddenly gaining ground. Google is rapidly closing in on Nvidia in the race to become the world’s most valuable publicly listed company, with the gap between the two narrowing sharply amid diverging stock momentum. The tech giant’s market capitalisation has surged to around $4.65 trillion, following a more than 140 per cent rise in its share price over the past year.
That rally has added over $2.6 trillion in value in just 12 months, including nearly $900 billion since January alone. Its stock recently hovered at $381.80, slipping marginally by 0.04 per cent, but still reflecting strong upward momentum.
Nvidia, meanwhile, continues to hold the top spot with a valuation of approximately $4.86 trillion. The chipmaker crossed the $5 trillion milestone in October last year and peaked at $5.27 trillion on 27 April. However, its shares have largely plateaued over the past six months, rising just 0.2 per cent recently to $199.99.
The contrast in trajectories is striking. While Nvidia has seen relatively flat movement, Google has gained over 36 per cent in the same six-month period. Barron’s estimates suggest that if current trends hold, the valuation gap could shrink to as little as $190 million by the time Nvidia reports its first-quarter earnings on 20 May.
Daily momentum paints a similar picture. Nvidia recorded average daily gains of about 0.66 per cent last month, compared to Google’s stronger 1.42 per cent, an edge that could prove decisive in the short term.
Driving Google’s resurgence is its aggressive push into artificial intelligence across its ecosystem, from search and YouTube to cloud computing. The company has already invested $144 billion in capital expenditure over the past two years and plans to deploy a further $490 billion over the next two.
Its cloud division is also gathering pace. Google Cloud reported an order backlog of nearly $220 billion in the latest quarter, with total backlog touching a record $462 billion, around half of which is expected to be realised within two years. The company’s entry into chip sales is also beginning to factor into its growth narrative.
The last time Google briefly topped the S&P 500 by market value was in February 2016, when it edged past Apple for just two days. This time, the stakes and the numbers are far higher.
At the heart of the contest lies a single force: artificial intelligence. As both companies pour billions into infrastructure, chips and platforms, the leaderboard is no longer just about size, it is about who can scale the future faster.
