Buy me a hotel 🛒
DMart's numbers, a16z's mega raise, and PayPal's move.
Morning folks 👋 it’s week 2.
What a start though. Global markets and growth stocks are shitting, crypto-bros lay slaughtered. Surprisingly, Indian markets have been resilient so far, but this week could be tough.
Anyway, easy news day today. Let’s get through it and leave you to better things. ☕
Kicking off the week ☕
💸 Cute bucket list — Mota bhai don’t make no reservations. Reliance is buying out one of New York City’s favorite luxury hotels — the Mandarin Oriental, in a $270 million+ deal. Some $98 million will go to purchase a 73.3% stake, while the rest will go to buy out outstanding debt. The Mandarin, overlooking the gorgeous Central Park, will be the 2nd luxury property in Reliance’s kitty, after they bought London’s Stoke Park last year. Reliance also owns ~20% in Oberoi Hotels in India. What an empire!
DMart sets the mood right 📈
Earnings season is a go. And despite all odds, D-Mart came out some solid numbers for its 3rd quarter — putting investors concerned about the impact of inflation, supply issues, ad rising raw material costs, at ease.
Quick look at some major stats:
Oct to Dec revenues jumped 22% YoY to ₹9,065 crores
Profits of ₹553 crores were up 23.7% YoY
Despite Omicron’s early fears, DMart cut the ribbon on 17 new stores — it’s highest in seven+ quarters
Margins improved across the board. Management also hinted at strong performance from certain categories like FMCG and consumables. But caution was sounded on demand going forward, as rising cases keep folks locked inside their homes.
Bottomline — anyhoo, the numbers set a favorable stage for other consumer companies set to report in the coming weeks. ✌️
Quick look at some weekend raises 💰
Zuddl, an SF and BLR based virtual events startup, closed a $13.35 million Series A round from Alpha Wave Incubation, Qualcomm Ventures and a few others.
As you know, a large portion of corporate events have permanently moved to the cloud, which has given rise to countless platforms that combine live-streaming functions with other software services that takes care of the entire management process.
Anyway, Zuddl, backed by YC, is growing like a weed and serves some big ass names like Microsoft, Byju’s, Google and Razorpay.
Worth mentioning — CES, one of tech’s biggest events worldwide, returned offline this year. It was a disaster with nobody showing up. So yeah…
Meanwhile, hot damn a16z 🤑
Venture fund Andreessen Horowitz raised an eye-popping $9 billion across multiple funds in a fresh raise.
The fund will be allocated in parts. $2.5 billion will go to invest in super-early companies, while $5 billion will chase growth-stage, bit mature tech plays. The remaining $1.5 billion will go to fund promising Biotech ventures.
Closing out — PayPal wants more crypto 👊
What’s poppin’ — after finding success in crypto trading (through Venmo) payment processor PayPal has now decided to launch its own stablecoin — to bring more crypto-services to its young millennial, GenZ heavy base.
Exact purpose of the stablecoin is unclear though, but PayPal could do a fair ton with programmable money — including cheaper transactions for millions of its global merchants, faster settlements, or just plain wallets for users.
Besides, the $300 billion giant doesn’t jump on hype that easily, so for now the crypto industry is taking this as a sign of validation.
Big picture — regardless, crypto can make some real money. Platforms know they can slip in 2-3% in transaction fees, a luxury in the otherwise margin-compressing payments business, and multiply fortunes overnight. Just ask Dorsey.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
💳 Fintech FTW - RBI is setting up a fintech department to figure out how it can accelerate innovation within the space. Venture folks cheer the news!
😷 COVID’s world - new daily COVID cases worldwide top 2 million, an increase of 270% since November. Mask up!
🗣️ Good airline - due to Omicron, Indigo won’t charge flight changing fees to customers until 31st March.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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Now AI is mapping the mind of MOTA BHAI, as to read which next sector may be hunt by him.!!!