Damage control 🤕

Venture deals, Hollywood saved, and Zuck is king.

Jun 29, 2021

Hi 👋, Tanvi here.

Filter Coffee hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump start your day.

Let’s go ahead and get started:

Market summary: 📊

Soft open to the week in India, but much welcome as it keeps the rally from going crazy. US kicked off on a high, with tech catching serious winds.

US:

S&P 500 - up 0.23%
Nasdaq - up 1.25%

India:

Nifty 50 - down 0.29%
Sensex - down 0.36%

What’s brewing hot? ☕

✅ dis the year of the Tiger — We’re halfway through 2021, and Tiger Global has already plowed $1.74 billion into 15 Indian startups, churning out 9 unicorns in the process in India. With that, Tiger takes the baton as the most active and largest investor in Indian startups from rival Sequoia, with exposure to half of all the unicorns in India.

✅ Bansal’s bazoooooka — Sachin Bansal’s latest fintech play, Navi, will launch the cheapest goddamn index fund ever, based on the Nifty 50 index, charging a measly 0.06% for fees — well below the industry average of 0.25%. The fund goes live on Jul 3, and formally kicks off Indian tech’s assault on the margins of the traditional financial industry. So long, idiots!

Rest In Peace Wwe GIF by DARK SIDE OF THE RING

Containing the damage 🧐

With the 2.0 wave dying off a bit (or atleast hope so), GOI is ready to shift its focus to the economic crisis left in the wake. The Finance Ministry announced a slew of measures, predictably “conservative”, to help SMEs stand on their two feet.

Quick look:

₹1.1 lakh crore loan guarantee program to help access to credit, and stop banks from turning down consumers because of worries of blow ups
The emergency credit line program announced last year will be extended by ₹1.5 lakh crores
Small merchants and individuals get a small personal “Credit Guarantee Scheme” with max loan of ₹1.25 lakhs with interest of under 2%
Sector specific doles were announced — with Tourism, Healthcare and other sectors getting a priority

Here’s a complete outline from Moneycontrol. Meanwhile, those expecting some direct cash in the bank were disappointed, as usual.

Going ahead — while GOI’s economic management of the crisis gets decent points, distribution of doles still needs to be worked out. The average dude barely has any idea what support he’s eligible for.

Quick look at a big balls IPO 😎

What Happened —Healthium Medtech, the largest manufacturer of surgical needles and consumable medical goods in India, is going public, raising ~$300M at a $1B valuation.

The old-school giant has been in the biz for 29 years, primarily making surgical needles, wound closures and other medical products, supplying 18,000+ hospitals across 70+ countries. Last year, the business made ₹640 crores in revenues, and management is guiding for ₹1K crore+ in 2 years, courtesy of demand for disposable med-goods during COVID.

And as the second wave subsides, delayed routine procedures and surgeries are expected to help carry growth for the business.

Big picture —5 more pharma companies are set to make their market debut this year, and with investor craze around the space at an all time high, this thing’s flyin for sho. Good luck gettin’ in LOL.

Hot Wings GIF by First We Feast: Hot Ones

What’s cooking in Startupland? 🔥

Gaming keeps heating up! Krafton, the owner of PUBG, led a $9 million seed round into local video game streaming platform Loco, alongside Lumikai, Hiro Capital and a few others.

Loco, like Twitch, provides avid gamers a platform to live stream games, tournaments and esports events. Amidst COVID, monthly active users and streamers grew 6x and 10x respectively.

Meanwhile, Krafton has been extremely bullish on India’s mobile + esports opportunity for a long time, earlier having invested a major pot into esports tournament organizer Nodwin Gaming as well.

From one hot sector to another, ☝️

Credit card startup Slice, which offers millennials and gen Z access to first time credit, raised $20 million from Gunsoy and Blume Ventures. The company’s credit card product encourages first-time card users to build a credit history, in the process cultivating data assets and infra for an emerging cohort largely ignored by traditional banks.

So far, the startup claims 3 million registered users, growing 25% YoY, and with barely 30M credit card users in India, the opportunity is big.

Closing out — Dom saves Hollywood 🏎️

The superhuman abilities of Vin Diesel don’t just make cars fly, but help Hollywood get out of a rut too. Fast & Furious 9, hate it as much as you like, is a certified crowd puller, with its opening weekend bringing in $70 million — the highest opening for a movie since "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019.

Since the film opened internationally for a month or so, it has made well over $405 million in box office sales, bringing hope into the industry that was counting on submitting to streaming as its last saving grace.

Why care — COVID decimated the traditional movie industry. Hollywood ticket sales fell by 80%, to bring in a measly $2 billion in 2020. Gotta be worse for Bollywood. F9’s run shines light showing the tunnel's end.

Driving Fast And Furious GIF by The Fast Saga

What else are we snackin’ 🍿

🎫 Visit Bharat - GOI will offer 5 lakh free tourist visas till next year, to revive the pandemic ravaged tourism industry.

🔥 Zuck kills it- Facebook became the 5th publicly traded company to clinch $1T in market cap, after a US court today tossed an antitrust case against the company. What a ride!