Coke bets on energy drinks 💪
UPI on fire, Maruti's endless pain, and Squid coin disaster.
Market summary: 📊
India kicked off the week with a strong rally, much welcome after last week’s dull show. US took things slower, but still ending in the green.
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.18%
Nasdaq - up 0.35%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 1.46%
Sensex - up 1.40%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
✅ UPI on fire —thanks to holiday fever, UPI processed more than a $100 billion in payment volumes for the month of October, topping the landmark for the first time! 421 crore transactions were processed for the month, with monthly volumes growing nearly 80% from the start of this year alone, and likely doubling by the time we ring in 2022. COVID helped.
✅ Green light, Red light — when Money Heist meets Squid Games. A coin called Squid Game ($SQUID), launched barely a week ago, was one of the hottest runners lately — going from nothing to like $2,800 in a week. Fun and games, until the folks managing the project decide to run away with all investor funds, netting $2M+ for themselves, and bringing the coin prices down to $0 within a few seconds. Here’s a video of how it all ended. Tchk!
Coca Cola doubling-down on energy drinks 🥤
What happened — Coca-Cola will acquire global sports-drink player BodyArmor in a $5.6 billion deal, following rivals in pushing deeper into the fast growing energy drink space.
The entire beverage industry is lining up behind performance drinks — to secure a future in an increasingly health conscious market, as young folks shy away from packing their refrigerators with sugary drinks.
FYI, barely a month ago, we’d seen Pepsi dump its Orange Juice empire, and focus on Gatorade. Anyway, Coke already held a 30% stake in BodyArmor, and will buy out the rest from the founders.
Good business — Pepsi’s Gatorade dominates the category, but Coke is strong at No. 2. with BodyArmor, which is set to bring in $1.4 billion by the end of the year (about ~5% of Coke’s total revenues).
Fun fact — Kobe Bryant (RIP) had invested $6 million in BodyArmor years ago, and after the coke deal, his family will see $400 million out!
Who got the big money? 💸
No more forgot-the-bhindi on your way home.10-minute grocery delivery startup, Zepto, raised $60 million at a $225 million valuation from Glade Brook Capital.
The category may not appeal to the budget savvy folks, but an increasingly busy base of urban professionals, who also aren’t too keen on Swiggy’ing 24x7 (health and all that) prefer stuff to be brought ASAP in minutes.
Anyway, Zepto came out of stealth with this round, and is building these dark stores strategically placed across cities to ensure the math works out, profitably. Good luck!
While we are on raises, ☝️
Neobank Fi raised another $50 million round from B Capital, and Falcon Edge at a $315 million valuation. Fi (along with Jupiter) is leading the neo-banking races in India, pitching the standard no-fee, digital-first banking bill (you heard it a million times) to a millennial and GenZ base.
The platform is seeing around 3-4 million monthly transactions currently, but guess the real winner is Federal Bank. iykyk
Travel recovery somewhat puts IRCTC back on track 😎
India’s rail booking platform blasted some serious growth numbers, as travel had slowly started to recover during the last 2 months of the previous quarter.
Quick look:
Revenues up 357% to ₹405 crores
Profits up 380%+ to ₹158 crores
Performance was consistent across segments — ticketing, catering, and water, all signs of strong travel demand
Stock has been in some choppy waters lately, but if growth rates keep up, more tops likely coming.
Meanwhile, Maruti’s pain just won’t end 🤷♀️
Maruti is losing share through its nose, is late to the EV party, and now broken supply chains are adamantly hurting production for months. After a disastrous August, and September, Maruti’s net sales AGAIN declined in October — down 24% YoY.
Stock has been dead in the water for months, and likely staying that way for a while. Figure it out, ya’ll!
Closing Out — Don’t sleep on Crypto 💰
Crypto got one of its biggest raises — with Digital Currency Group raising $700 million from Softbank and Google’s CapitalG, at a $10 billion+ valuation.
DCG owns over 200 blockchain companies, from asset management platform Grayscale to crypto news and media outlet, CoinDesk, running a profitable empire that will make a $1 billion in revenues this year.
Bottomline —ain’t just a fad anymore huh.
Tweet of the day 🐦
NuBank, the world’s largest neobanking platform, is going public. Fintech nerds may find this thread interesting
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
⏳ Next in line - PharmEasy’s parent, API Holdings will file its IPO docs with SEBI next week.
💸 GOI's Diwali - India collected GST of over ₹1.3 lakh crores in October, the second highest since the tax’s implementation in 2017.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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