CDSL breached ⚔️
Zuck's stores, Travel is back, and Allbirds IPO.
Hello again. 🤡 Back here refreshed after a solid break, and a couple pounds heavier from all the Diwali Sweets. Hope you did some recharging too!
Let’s jump right in and then leave you to kick Monday’s ass. 🤙
Pour me something hot ☕
✅ Big Money Biden — after months of haggling, US lawmakers finally sent the $1.2 trillion US Infrastructure Bill to Biden’s desk for his signature, outlining investment packages to upgrade everything from roads, railways, internet connectivity, housing, to kicking-off buildout of electric car infra. US hopes the bill plugs gaping holes in its economic machine, and helps with re-acceleration of its domestic economy, especially as a tech-savvy rival emerges in the east. Indian markets ought to see some cheer, expecting some trickle down impact of all the spending.
✅ Zuck got omni channel plans — Facebook wants to open up its own hardware stores to get people to test out its Oculus VR gear, and possibly kill the stigma around having your face glued into a shoe-box all the time to enjoy the experience. VR (or some form of immersive-hardware) adoption is key to Facebook’s transition to the metaverse, otherwise the company will have to again rely on another hardware-maker to push its services (which most likely could be Apple). And given how Zuck and Tim Cook have grown to hate each other…
Data breach eats up CDSL 💻
What happened — not exactly the news you’d hope to kick-off Monday trading, but CDSL, the securities depository that holds all your shares in demat form, is wrangling a data breach incident that may have leaked the KYC information of 4.4 crore Indian investors.
There’s a lot of finger pointing going on right now — but per CDSL, the entity that manages KYC for them, called CDSL Ventures Ltd., was the only one affected.
Apparently a third-party security consultant found the breach, alerted CDSL mid-October, but team CDSL took 7 days to fix it. Now the security consultant is asking regulators to audit CDSL thoroughly to get a full picture. Here’s the blog detailing their investigation.
What we’re speculating — the extent of the breach is hazy at best. But the consultant claims exposed data includes names, phone numbers, emails, PAN info, salaries, data of births, but nothing related to transactions or assets. Thankfully.
Old economy is coming back with a bang 👊
What happened — stock rallies from the Zooms and the Pelotons of the world are fizzling out, while the old-economy companies are starting to come out on the top. Some quick nuggets 👇
Airbnb saw 80 million reservations on its platform for the last 3 months, processing $11.9 billion in volumes. Airbnb’s profits jumped nearly 300%! Not bad for a company nearly defunct in April 2020.
With revenge travel back, Booking.com, and its rival Expedia, are growing revenues at 70+% — becoming Wall Street’s newest favorites. Watching MakeMyTrip in India?
Gyms are seeing a January 1st moment. Planet Fitness grew its revenues by 45% YoY in the last 3 months. Growth rates like that aren't heard of in this business!
Meanwhile, indoor workouts are losing their appeal. Peloton’s stock was hammered down 35% in a day after growth stalled and use declined. Turns out an iPad slapped on a bike for $3,000 ain’t a lasting business after all.
Bottomline — rotation of money from the 2020-favorites to the real-world favorites is inevitable. Opportunities abound.
Couple quick updates from Venture Town 💸
In mega raises, B2B manufacturing marketplace Zetwerk is close to wrapping up a $250 million round at a $2.5 billion valuation from Iconiq Capital and Greenoaks.
Zetwerk helps large enterprises outsource complex manufacturing jobs to skilled small-manufacturers, who take complex designs and deliver precision works. The platform has expanded to 15 countries, with revenues set to 4x to ₹3,500 crores this year. COVID effect!
Meanwhile, confidence in Paytm is at an ATH 🤙
IPO-bound Paytm raised a monstrous $1.1 billion for its anchor round — the largest pre-IPO anchor round in India ever. Blackrock, GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board chipped in the most, and shares were oversubscribed by 10x.
Sets a solid tone for the public-bid which opens today!
Closing Out — those rare D2C victories 👟
What happened — online shoe company Allbirds finally went public on the Nasdaq — raising $300M, and doubling valuation to $4.1 billion by Friday close.
Allbirds shot to fame as a staple item in the otherwise limited wardrobe of the average Silicon Valley tech-nerd and VC-bro, riding the sustainability wave to make a mark (its sneakers made from natural materials like wool and sugarcane).
Now the business runs an omni-channel model — selling mostly online, but also through its 35 or so brick and mortar locations. Profits are still elusive — losing $26 million on $219 million in revenue, but markets seem to be forgiving.
Link to the S-1 for the D2C nerds.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
💉 Keeps getting better — India reported 11K new COVID cases in the last 24 hours, taking active tally to 1.45L, the lowest it has been in over 260 days.
🚚 Ford killed it — Ford’s electric truck, the F-150 Lightning, has crossed 160,000 bookings in 6 months of launch. 75% of the customers are new to Ford.
😐 Taxes are coming - the Infrastructure Bill that US lawmakers signed off on also includes provisions for better monitoring and reporting of crypto payments. Transactions of over $10K will need to be reported to the IRS, just like in regular banking. Decentralize, what?
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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