Ecommerce policy 📜
Venture deals, digital safety, and YeForPrez.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Make way for the OG of Gaming chat 🎮
Discord, the communication app famous among gamers, has raised another $100 Million in funding led by famed Index Ventures and other existing investors, riding the wave of pandemic driven explosion in gaming.
Discord’s reliability, anonymity and focus on voice over video had instantly made it popular among gamers after its launch back in 2015. Over time, a ton of other users have flocked to the platforms, including startup enthusiasts, indie developers, and passionate creators etc. who now form over 30% of its user base.
Now the app wants to seriously grow beyond its gamer audience and will use the new round of funding toward that. Lockdowns have brought big victories to gaming platforms with people flocking gaming apps, which has led to Discord’s active users growing by 47% since February.
The platform has more than 100 Million monthly active users. Read more.
Goldman doubles up on beauty products 💄
As India’s digital commerce heats up, all types of investors seem to want a piece of the pie. Global IB Goldman Sachs now has bought out key angel investors in a beauty products ecommerce platform Purplle in a ₹60 Crore transaction.
Goldman Sachs had led the firm's series C funding by investing $30 Million back in January.
Purplle launched in 2012 and turned cash profitable in 2018. With massive shift to digital selling underway in India and with skincare spends showing a surge, Purplle is expecting to double GMV to $100 Million for the 2021 financial year.
The online beauty market in India is around $600 Million which is growing at a CAGR of 30% of which Nykaa has taken up a major share and other players include Amazon, Flipkart and Purplle. The runway seems super long and Goldman is in for the long haul.
The GS transaction has netted the Angels a 40x return since then first plowed capital into the company in 2011. Read more.
Government turns white knight 📱
Apparently, the government of India has been working on an operating policy for the past 2 years to reduce the dominance of global tech giants like Amazon, Google and Facebook operating in ecommerce in India, and offer local companies a fair shot at competing.
In the latest draft the government is going to appoint an e-commerce regulator to ensure the industry is competitive with broad access to information.
The rules would also give the government access to online companies source codes and algorithms. The draft talks of ascertaining whether the platforms have an explainable AI, delving deeper into the information leveraged to make recommendations.
The platforms will be required to provide consumers with the details of sellers including phone numbers, customer complaints contacts and email ids, and country of origin for imported goods.
The policy does sound quite invasive so far in theory, and it remains to be seen what the exact details are. But the big tech companies certainly won’t give up without pushing back hard considering how dear they hold their IP. However, we won’t underestimate the GOI’s motivation, considering its blanket ban on China recently. Read more.
FB wants to turn internet educator in India 📚
In an interesting tie up, Facebook has partnered with CBSE to offer a range of internet essentials as well as emerging technology courses to CBSE’s teachers and students.
The courses will be delivered through private and public school partnerships. FB will help develop the content, curriculum and distribution technology. Current agenda includes a certified curriculum on digital safety and online well-being and an introductory course to augmented reality using FB’s Spark AR Studio.
In total, the initiative in the first go will look to train some 10,000 teachers and 30,000 students.
Facebook in India has been aggressively partnering with organizations to offer digital literacy and other programs. Earlier, a similar partnership with Jio had the company offer a program that confronts misuse of FB’s services for first time internet users.
While some of this might seem like an eyewash to be in the good books of regulators in India, we think the initiative to help bring emerging technology knowledge to the masses is absolutely laudable! Good on Facebook.
Softbanks wants more of Insurance 🤑
Softbank’s Vision fund will stake another $130 Million into India’s financial services platforms PolicyBazaar and PaisaBazaar, taking an over 15% stake in the parent company that owns both platforms, at a reported $1.5 Billion.
The purchase is a combination of shares bought from existing investors and fresh capital infusion into the company. Perhaps, Softbank’s recent IPO success in the insurance space in the US is partly a confidence booster in this transaction.
Apparently post-COVID, PolicyBazaar has been doing better while PaisaBazaar has been struggling a bit as online insurance in the absence of offline agents thrived but lending suffered due to economic weakness.
But investors believe when things rebound both platforms are ideally positioned. Both platforms have used the pandemic opportunity to streamline costs and other restructuring during the recent months.
Tweet of the day -
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🚕 Uber shuts Mumbai office- Earlier in May, Uber CEO announced the closure of 45 offices globally, as part of its restructuring efforts, and turns out Mumbai is one of the locations to be axed. Company assures that its services in the city will remain unaffected.
🌏 Taj Mahal open for tourists from today - After a 3 month shutdown, India is opening the Taj Mahal from today with visitors required to wear masks and maintain social distancing. Along with the Taj, authorities are also reopening Delhi’s Red Fort.
😷 Highest single day spike in Coronavirus cases in India- India’s COVID-19 tally touched 6.7 Lakh after adding 25K cases in a single day, as pace of testing has been ramped up. On the brighter side, the number of patients cured has crossed 4 Lakh.
😎 Discounted ESOP’s to be granted to employees by OYO - Cash crunched OYO is doing everything possible to salvage operations. After major pay cuts in April, OYO has now sent letters to its employees who were put on leave and given limited benefits plans saying that the company has “decided to make every employee a co-owner” by granting them deeply discounted ESOP’s.
💪 Kanye for President - Kanye West on Saturday announced on Twitter that he would be running for US President in 2020. It was not immediately clear if he was serious about it or not, but the deadline to add independent candidates has not passed in many states. Regardless, its a great way to get some eyeballs to his fledgling media empire.
🙁 Airlines continue to shed jobs - Air France is planning to lay off 7,580 jobs which accounts for 17.5% of its current workforce over the next couple years. The airline has lost $16.9 Million per day since the pandemic began.
✈️ United Airlines gets permission for Indo-US charter flights - The aviation authority has granted US based United Airlines to operate 3 special charter flights from Delhi to the US. The flight has started bookings from Delhi to Newark route and the ticket will cost around ₹57,000.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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