Edtech doesn’t chill
Hot venture street, Oscar night and influencers keep giving.
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Market summary: 📊
Indian investors mustered some courage for Monday even as new cases continue to pile on. US had an okay day with tech gaining ahead of big earnings showdowns.
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.18%
Nasdaq 100 - up 0.61%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 1.00%
Sensex - up 1.06%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
✅ Leaks keep coming—this time, its BigBasket. Personal data including email, phone numbers, hashed passwords and other details of nearly 20 million users is out in the open on a cybercrime forum. The info had actually been stolen from BB servers by hacking group ShinyHunters, back in November 2020, but until today was mostly inaccessible. In consolation, BB cites the leaked data does not contain any credit card details, and that all users had been informed back when the leak occurred itself, and beyond that nothing much can be done!
✅ Ouch, Tech Mahindra—the IT earnings party on Dalal Street was looking great, but Tech Mahindra turned out a bigtime buzzkill. The company saw profits down 17% YoY, and missed on street’s estimates for revenues and profits, which in investor speak, is unforgivable. Management tried to pacify investors with tales of how the demand pipeline was looking sooo good, as well as with a cute dividend. Regardless, we’re guessing not adjusting their sails fast enough to adjust to a cloud-first future is slowly coming to bite TechM in the butt.
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Banking doesn’t have to be boring
Most banks, designed around the needs of the older generations, leave huge gaps that fail to meet the needs of today’s teenagers.
Yodaa’s out to change that. The company’s financial lifestyle app is designed for emerging demands of modern teenagers in India and SeAsia.
Users get their own cool card powered by Mastercard, with complete control over their finances, and a chance to master their money game early-on in life, through practical experience in a safe environment.
Besides, the Yodaa app also ensures parents have complete control and visibility over a teen’s expenses, making it super easy to set budgets, or even contribute to savings plans.
Yodaa’s mission is to raise a generation of financially aware teenagers for the new decade, and the product is part of Singapore-based financial technology company Atlantis.
Venture Street is warming up, again... 💰
and it's all for edtech.
Ronnie Screwvala backed-MOOC platform Upgrad raised $120 million from Temasek, at an undisclosed but rumored $500-$600 million valuation.
Upgrad basically runs a Coursera for India—working with well renowned foreign and Indian universities to bring a broad range of online-only upskilling options, served mostly to a professional audience base. The business booked ₹100 crores+ in revenues in 2020, thanks to the pandemic’s blessing to edtech, still growing at an enticing 100%+ YoY rate.
And given the rockstar $5 billion Coursera IPO last month, we’re guessing convincing investors to double down wasn’t all too hard.
Bottomline: the edtech market is estimated to top $10 billion by 2025 in India. Most fist-fighting has been restricted at the K-12 level, which still leaves ample room for feisty ideas to thrive at the professional upskilling level.
Hard to see any headwinds over the short term, and those leading the market will continue making big strides!
Oscars, what? 🏆
Sunday night was the once-revered Oscars—the film industry’s most exclusive event.
But nobody could care any less… the “televised” event, that’s pitifully grappling with decaying viewership every year, failed to draw eyeballs or social media chatter for yet another season!
This year was unique—firstly, the going carnage in the eastern world obviously overshadows everything else in the media. And then also, movie production had been halted for most part of 2020 given widespread lockdowns, which meant the content slate competing this year was uniquely weak, which turned off most viewers and attending celebs.
But then, in case someone chit-chats on your Zoom call, here’s some small talk fodder:
“Nomadland”, a story about a woman who lives on the road after being displaced by the ‘08 financial crisis, won the best picture
The lead in Nomadland, Frances McDormand, won best actress in leading role
Anthony Hopkins won best lead actor award for “The Father”
And early reviews of the event… well, let's just say weren’t the kindest either.
Why care: declining viewership in these events, which once upon a time used to religiously draw hundreds of millions, is one of the biggest signs of how legacy media and its prized influence over the masses has failed to transcend newer generations.
Similarly, the Grammys (music’s top most event) and the Emmys (TV industry’s top event) had seen viewership drop by as much as 50% in 2020! Ain’t no comin’ back from that.
On the other hand, do an Insta live and hand out awards to the most creative influencers—we bet you pull a billion eyeballs easy.
Guess what, times change, and companies too 🤝
Huawei, the Chinese giant shot in the knee with harsh sanctions by the US, crippling its smartphone and networking hardware business, is apparently plotting a transformative comeback, but this time hoping to be “more like Google”—or exclusively prioritizing leadership in Software.
Huawei management has apparently outlined two critical areas for priority to give the business a new life—smart cars and autonomy(like Google’s Waymo), and cloud computing.
FYI, just last month Huawei joined the range of mega-Chinese electronics makers who are betting big money on large scale electric vehicle manufacturing plants, leveraging their expertise in making smartphones.
And then, just last week Huawei released a solid partnership with Chinese car maker Arcfox, promising the company software and computing expertise. Far as the cloud business goes, we’re yet to see any meaningful moves.
What amuses us: barely a few years ago, giants like Alibaba, Baidu, Xiaomi, and even Huawei were ever so vividly pitching global investors on their ambitions of dominating the world markets, spreading “Chinese” genius far outside China’s borders.
Now, it's quite amusing to see the same pack of businesses aggressively fold inwards as the political winds change, and perhaps forever, actively pulling off transformations that match the China-first agenda of the local establishment.
Closing out—influencers will be everywhere 👋
Politicians turning into influencers is not new, many hot examples apparent... But Gen Z influencers tryna wear those slimy-suits however—now that’s unusual!
Couple of 20-something GenZ YouTube personalities in London are out running for Mayor—the top job responsible for running the metropolis with 9 million people.
One of the guys, Niko Omilana supercharging his campaign almost solely via funny sketches and social experiments, made for the 3.5 million followers he has on YouTube… and what’s surprising is that dude’s literally ranking at the No. 5 spot in the race according to early polls.
We’ve seen the influencer-to-entrepreneur transition play out quite royally many times (yay for Kanye, oops for Dobrik), but it's quite fascinating to see other mainstream careers and professions falling prey to the attacks of “personal” distribution as well. And if Ocasio-Cortez is any evidence, the strategy can be extremely potent far as politics is concerned!
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
💪 Putting that scale to work - Amazon will airlift over 8,000 oxygen concentrators and 500 bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP) machines from Singapore to aid strained hospitals strengthen their infra in case cases keep rising.
👀 Reddit in hot water- Reddit is being sued by a woman for allowing her ex-boyfriend to post obscene pictures of her from when she was 16 years old, which is opening a can of worms on the platform’s illogical and lax data moderation practices.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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