Dorsey shows how 😎
Discord boom, Tyson’s fight, and tech loses an icon.
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First things first...☕
1️⃣ FPI interest surges—foreign private investors displayed their bullishness on India by pouring a whopping ₹63K crores into the Indian markets in November, almost a 175% month-over-month bump. Nearly 95% of the capital went into equities, while rest into debt vehicles. Strong holiday spending data from big companies and hopes of Sensex crossing 45,000 levels may have boosted morale and driven some to FOMO.
2️⃣ For your Zoom small talk—Mike Tyson’s much awaited exhibition fight against Roy Jones Jr. on Saturday ended in a draw. But the true winner of the bout was Snoop Dogg’s hilarious commentary, with fans now demanding more commentary gigs for him. Also, worth mentioning—the fight was streamed for $50 on Triller, the TikTok competitor, and early stats are promising, with the app catapulted into top 30 on the App Store overnight.
Okay, back to real business….
Discord doubling on the gaming boom 🎮
Discord is about to close a new funding round before the end of the year, targeting a $7 billion valuation. Barely 3 months ago, the communications platform for gamers had raised $100 million at almost half the valuation.
The entire gaming ecosystem has exploded in the after-math of COVID, and platforms like Discord, Twitch, and even Roblox are emerging from “niche” services to capture a broader share of the engagement and opportunity. Discord for example, had about 300 million registered users in June, and has been consistently doubling that number each year for almost 2 years now, with management eyeing a similar growth rate to sustain near term.
With gaming set for further boost with AR, virtual currencies, and other structural changes in a few years, prospects have never been brighter. Fresh round of capital will be used to streamline operations and structure the company for a looming IPO that’s likely to come early next year.
Lastly, investors are secretly also counting on an acquisition—from Sony, Microsoft, or even Amazon, Google, FB and others looking to build massive cloud gaming franchises.
Square’s super-app gets a Tax suite 💰
Square acquired Credit Karma Tax (earlier part of free credit monitoring service Credit Karma), to integrate the service with its existing P2P payments app, as the company looks to simplify essential financial services into a single app for millennials and GenZ.
Fintech super apps did not take off in the west the same way they did in Asian markets. PayPal, Robinhood, Square, and others built humongous franchises no doubt, but they did it by mostly sticking to their lane of specialization, until now, where the leaders are slowly beginning to expand horizontally to make their services stickier, and complete.
Anyway, Square paid $50 million for the company and the deal was actually brokered by regulators. Credit Karma had sold itself to another tax-giant for a blockbuster $7.1 billion and the government, concerned that a single tax-software player may have too much power over the market, asked them to offload that unit.
The ready-made unit will now offer a strong lift to Square's ambitions as the company slowly breaks away from P2P rival Venmo, leading by innovation. Dorsey showing how it's done. 😎
Closing out the day 🔐
Tony Hsieh, the founder and ex-CEO of Zappos, passed away due to injuries faced from a tragic house fire. Tony was well known for starting an iconic ecommerce platform for footwear and then selling it to Amazon for nearly $1.2 billion in 2009.
Beyond that, Tony was known for his vision, an empathetic approach to business, and his stubborn effort to focus on delighting the customer. Twitter saw an outpour of anguish and shock, with admirers resharing some of his wisdom.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
💉 Vaccine progress - the domestic made Covaxin vaccine has now entered phase-three human clinical trials at AIIMS at New Delhi. The shot is expected to be given to around 15k volunteers over the next 5 days and AIIMS’ doctor M V Padma Srivastava was the first one to receive the shot.
😷 1,400 workers a day - while some industries cratered during COVID, others bloomed. Amazon’s historic hiring spree saw the company add nearly 1,400 people on average each day for 10 MONTHS! Since the pandemic hit, the company grew its total workforce by nearly 50%.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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