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Market summary: 📊
India extended the pullback and lost some more ground yesterday. US turned around after a brutal midweek sell off to end on a high.
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.13%
Nasdaq - up 0.51%
India:
Nifty 50 - down 0.28%
Sensex - down 0.29%
Life comes full circle ♻️
What happened — Amazon apparently wants to become a Walmart, disclosing plans to open large departmental stores, in a renewed focus to win offline-commerce for its newest act. Folks watching them closely are barely surprised!
BTW, Amazon already owns 500+ offline mega-marts via Whole Foods, an organic food supermarket the company bought in 2017 for $13 billion. Not to forget the Amazon Go stores (automated, checkout-less) with ~30 locations.
So why the move — first, although Amazon rules ecommerce, it barely owns 3% of all global retail. Certain offline-heavy categories like furniture, clothing, grocery, still have plenty of room for growth.
Second, Amazon’s dominance is challenged by Walmart and other offline big box retailers, who are building robust ecommerce operations inside of them, and offline locations can add a whole new dimension to Amazon’s capability to fight the war. Besides, offline stores can also double up as delivery and logistics hubs.
Lastly, Sunday-evening grocery runs are great opportunities to upsell users on more “impulse” purchases.
Big picture — future of retail is omnichannel, where big companies find an ideal middle ground between online and offline, capturing maximum economies of scale.
If you find this sexy (like we do, sorry) do grab a copy of Sam Walton’s biography! And thank us later.
What’s popping today? 🔥
✅ Semis spoil moods — Toyota is slashing global production in September by 40%, bringing its monthly car output to under 500K because it can’t get enough chips due to the ongoing semiconductor shortages. Although semiconductor companies are aggressively investing in buildouts, new capacity coming online will take almost 12-18 months. Meanwhile, used car prices are through the roof around the world.
✅ King Zuckerberg — move along Zoom, Facebook is designing an entire freaking-Metaverse for work, building a virtual representation of your office, delivered via the Oculus VR headset. An app called Horizon Workrooms will allow upto 16 people to co-work inside a virtual space, with 50 more people allowed to join in via video conferencing. Most certainly this isn’t the killer app for VR or Metaverse, but you can see where Facebook is trying to go with the platform.
What’s hot on Venture Street? 💰
Used car marketplace Cars24 closed on a $350 million round from DST Global, Softbank and Falcon Edge, doubling valuation to $2 billion.
The category has been on fire over the past several months, with multiple companies (Droom, Spinny, CarDekho) raising big, while a few go public (CarTrade). Rising prices of new cars, combined with a public transportation scare is driving the boom.
Anyway, Cars24 serves 400k+ customers, brings home $600 million+ in volumes, and is planning its own IPO soon.
Meanwhile, BharatPe picks more debt 🤙
The merchant-payment platform raised $28 million in debt from IIFL Wealth to fund its lending business.
The company basically uses payments data to understand how “creditworthy” a merchant is, offering much better terms than the antiquated methods used by banks are capable of offering. Loan book currently stands at over $300 million, serving 200K+ merchants so far, and a banking license is on its way.
Jet ain’t flying anytime soon ✈️
What happened — Jet Airways employees are appealing in front of the National Company Law Tribunal to block the deal put in place for the defunct airline to take flight again.
NCLAT had approved the takeover plan of the consortium led by PE group Kalarock and Murari Lal Jalan a while ago, and had asked air regulators to already start issuing routes to Jet.
But… the employees are basically not happy with the compensation package put together for them, which if you remember, despite the millions owed to some folks, settled everyone for a few thousand rupees.
What next — this fight could all the way go to Supreme Court blocking flight for months. Worse, the new investors walk away, or a delayed take off hurts the company’s ability to make the most of the anticipated post-COVID air travel boom.
Closing out — the business of OnlyFans 🤷♀️
What’s poppin’ — Creator economy pioneer, OnlyFans, is apparently seeking a billion dollar valuation, but is struggling to convince investors it’s worth that much…
Why? 🙄
VCs won’t touch it, because, well imagine pitching the business in a boardroom of middle aged men?
But also… Banks and Payment Processors are becoming increasingly hostile to the business, scared of blowbacks from global governments
For those hiding under a rock, Only Fans is basically like Shopify for adult-entertainment — a platform that turned the table by giving independent adult-entertainers more power, control, and monetization options, and an escape from the predatory behavior so casually employed in the adult industry.
So, OnlyFans finally made a move — it will stop all explicit content on the platform starting October, and will move to focus on “clean entertainment”. A total 360 change. More updates are expected soon!
Regardless, the stats are MIND-BLOWING 💯
Processed $2 billion in volumes last year, and made $400 million in revenues
130 million monthly active users
$5.6 billion paid out to creators, and is actually a profitable business
OnlyFans, may we suggest a SPAC, sire?
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🔊 Alexa play Rang barse - Alexa users can now add Amitabh Bachchan’s voice on the speaker and the shopping for $2 a year. Wish it was a joke.
🥶 Ban em, or keep em? - Social media platforms can’t decide whether to ban the Taliban’s accounts and stop misinformation, or to offer them “freedom of speech” so they don’t remain isolated.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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