Millions lose jobs; Indian pharma turns red hot 🔥
We’re sending you a simple 2-minute newsletter every morning with the most important scoops in tech and business to jump start your day. Sign up below 👇
Hello 👋 and welcome to the second issue (yeah we’re young and still seeking validation, consider signing up?) Let’s get started:
Stock market summary:
US - S&P 500 up 1.5% 📈 (HOT)
India - Sensex up 4.3% 📈 (VERY HOT)
Inside scoops 👇
Big Basket raises another $60 Million
Consumers stuck at home are piling up orders on Big Basket for essentials. This basically prompted the online grocery startup to seek incremental funding to meet demand. Big Basket is one of India’s largest unicorns and has raised over $750 Million since it was founded 8 years ago. The team claims that volume of orders has grown by 5 times in the recent weeks 😱😱.Â
Within the last one week Big basket has partnered with Uber and Rapido to enable last mile delivery in many towns of India where it was previously not available. You may read about the fund raise here.
Indian pharma is on a roll 💰💰
Trump is counting on India to supply the US with its required hydroxychloroquine stock and given the Indian government’s enthusiasm in contributing, Indian pharma is basically on a roll in the stock markets. Pharma stocks had an envious run in yesterday’s session, rarely giving an impression that we’re in the middle of a crisis.
Also, the government is announcing capital support (some 14,000 crores) to Indian pharma companies to boost domestic production capacity and cut reliance on China for raw materials. This move is viewed very favorably for the sector which could drive long term growth. Honestly, this might be a good time to look at those pharma mutual funds.
Outside scoops 👇
US unemployment numbers are scary!
The United States is now looking at nearly 17 Million (or 1.7 crore) people unemployed. The US workforce is of 16 crore so unemployment of nearly 10% is truly jaw dropping. What’s worse is that we’re still very early in measuring the impact of the crisis on livelihoods but loss of jobs does not bode well for the economy which is broadly preparing for a 1-2 year long recession.
This might be bad for India too basically because a large part of the Indian economy is driven by demand for services (IT, financial, pharma, consumer goods etc.) in the US. Fingers crossed.
Index Venture raises a $1.2 Billion new fund
One of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms with investments in Uber, Instacart, and others raised $1.2 Billion for its next fund which is a remarkable feat in the current environment. Read about it here.
Tweet of the Day 👇
We’ll be back with more cool stuff, meanwhile consider signing up.