Can't stop raising 💰
Student relief, ed-tech deals, and Indian businessmen ruling world.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
Filter Coffee is a newsletter that hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump start your day. Sign up below for free 👇
Let’s go ahead and get started:
Stock market summary:
US - S&P 500 up 0.91%
India - Sensex up 0.05%
Google joins the Jio party 💰
Google has become the latest tech giant to buy into RIL’s Jio, coughing up $4.5 Billion for a 7.73% stake. The funds will come from the $10 Billion Google had earmarked for digitization of India.
In the past 4 months, Jio has raised over $20.2 Billion from 13 investors for a 33% total ownership in the firm. Total valuation is now over $58 Billion. You can’t help but be awestruck by Mukesh bhai’s bijness sense and the audacity of his ambition.
The Big Picture -
Google and Jio will work on a customized version of Android OS to develop low cost, entry level smartphones. The phones will support Play Store and will be 5G enabled ( QCOM gives Jio cheaper 5G modems?).
These partnerships put Jio in a solid position to compete against local telco competitors, especially for the next hundreds of million mobile users who are yet to come online.
In its first virtual AGM yesterday, Jio also unveiled Jio Glass - an AR eye-wear product which will let users make video calls and access over 2 dozen apps. While price and other details are undisclosed, Jio is clearly gearing for the future.
Aggressive estimates suggest 800 Million plus smartphone users in India by 2025. The total addressable market for digital services is massive, especially when you add regional dimension to things and Ambani is obviously playing for nothing short of absolute domination. Read more.
Ed-tech marches relentlessly 👨💻
Unacademy made another investment, acquiring majority stake in an online learning platform Mastree for $5 Million. The ed-tech market is the hottest ever and Unacademy is doing everything it can to bolster its position.
Most recently Unacademy had acquired medical entrance prep platform Prepladder for a whopping $50 Million. Mastree however is much smaller and just eight months old. The company is focused on building a subscription service that live-coaches students in tiny class sizes, mostly for Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts and Math.
Key takeaway: there is no stopping for the ed-tech sector. Indians love their education and in the absence of physical schooling, the frenzy has 100% migrated online. In total, India’s education sector is a $150 Billion market and digital has barely scratched the surface. Expect continued growth and more deals here through the next many months. Read more.
Trump admin caves in 👏
The Trump admin has reversed its guidelines that required international students to leave the country if their university conducted classes online only for Fall 2020.
This revocation brought relief to nearly 200,000 Indian students who study in American universities. In an already weakening job market and increasingly difficult immigration environment, the students were dealing with enough problems as is.
Over 19 companies and local unions along with famed universities such as MIT and Harvard University and 180 other colleges had challenged the US administration in the Courts. Tough negotiations ensued before the administration walked back on its plans.
Tech giants Google, Microsoft, Twitter, PayPal etc. apparently also made arguments that deporting students would hurt the American economy in the long run. Read more.
Digital news is heating up
Editorji, a video based news app founded by former NDTV CEO Vikram Chandra, has attracted RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group with the latter buying 51% stake in the company.
While details of the transactions are obscure, the company is estimated to be valued at $10 Million. The digital news media market in India has just scratched the surface and the investor sees significant growth runway ahead. Filter Coffee agrees 😻
The platform wants to take a regional focus of putting out news in various languages and across 3 formats - audio, video and text. Also, there are plans to leverage AI for personalized recommendations and to eliminate human bias.
Why this matters: TV news is mostly letting people down with biased opinions and divisive takes that prioritize nothing but eyeballs. Also, TV as a medium is failing to appeal to increasingly digital-only youngsters. A disruptive startup delivering healthy dose of unbiased information digitally could go a long way in serving this base well.
A lot more will hopefully come in this space and it is worth watching closely. Read more about the deal.
IT services moving along 🤜
Infosys has won a multi-year deal from US based investment manager Vanguard to modernize their corporate retirement plan business unit. INFY will take on and manage 1,300 employees of Vanguard in the US as part of the venture.
The outcome in 5 years will give Vanguard a 100% cloud-hosted business operation that manages contributions, record keeping and other processes for 5 Million end users and 1,500 employer customers.
In other IT services news, Wipro has acquired a Bralizian IT service provider for about $22 Million, venturing into the retail, manufacturing and financial services consulting space in Latin America. Wipro leadership claims the move as part of its continued push to win more business in the region.
Bottom line: these new deals are a positive sign of recovery in the IT sector post-COVID and as second quarter earnings are due soon these happenings could go a long way in pacifying investors. IT sector’s prospects hold the key to India’s markets. Read more.
Tweet of the day -
What else are we snackin’
💉 Zydus begins human trials for vaccine - Zydus the Indian pharma company has started human studies for its COVID-19 vaccine. The potential vaccine ZyCoV-D was found to be safe in the pre-clinical trials. The company will enroll over 1,000 subjects across multiple study sites across India.
✈️ Branson secured capital for Virgin Airlines - As part of a rescue deal Richard Branson has secured $1.5 billion to keep the airline solvent. The recapitalization plan will be deployed over the next 18 months and has the support of existing and new investors, including $250 Million committed by the Virgin Group.
🖥️ Online classes will be regulated - Releasing guidelines for online classes for schools, the Union HRD ministry recommended a cap on daily sessions and their duration for different levels of school students. Thank God.
🤳 Holy Roposo! - India’s TikTok rival says it’s peaking at 500,000 new users an hour and expects to have 100 Million active users by month’s end. That’s beyond crazy!
🧐 Modern world, modern wars- India is facing increased cyber-attacks from China and Pakistan since the nationwide lockdown, per government officials and cyber security companies. Most attacks are through phishing emails, malicious advertisements on websites, and third-party apps. Watch out fam.
🛒 Amazon’s innovation knows no bound - Amazon cure for long supermarket lines is a smart shopping cart that uses cameras, sensors and a scale to automatically detect what shoppers drop in, and then charges shoppers’ Amazon account when they leave the store. Genius!
📽️ Facebook wants YouTube’s pie - Facebook is preparing to launch officially licensed music videos on its social network in the U.S. next month, in a direct challenge to YouTube. Music videos are some of the most widely watched and shared properties on YouTube.
🤯 Twitter hit by a massive hack - Apple, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk and several other figures’ Twitter profiles were compromised. The hacker has been posting tweets asking users for Bitcoin. Quite a shit show and Twitter has taken down all verified accounts while it investigates.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
If you like it, show us some love by clicking the heart icon below. And don’t forget to invite your friends.
Love your posts. Very crisp and useful. I really like the "Key takeaway" section.
Keep it up!