Everything expensive 🙄
Content makes money, grocery is hot, and malls are back.
Market summary: 📊
Global markets kicked off this week on the low. India pulled back almost a percent. US beat up tech stocks once again, as volatility persists.
US:
S&P 500 - down 0.91%
Nasdaq - down 1.53%
India:
Nifty 50 - down 0.82%
Sensex - down 0.86%
Quick shot of espresso ☕
1️⃣ No love for media — Buzzfeed, the lifestyle media operation, had gone public a week ago but Wall Street beat the living soul out of the stock, tanking it almost 40% down from opening, now valuing the firm at ~$800 million. At a point, Buzz was valued at $1.7B+ in private markets (same with Vice, Vox, all at $3B+) but public investors haven’t been too appreciative of such businesses which are at the constant mercy of big tech for distribution, and always in a fist-fight for limited attention, and ad dollars.
2️⃣ Knighted — Elon Musk is named Time Person of the Year for 2021 — recognizing his work in pioneering commercially viable EVs and Spacecraft, for a year that also saw his wealth propel him to become the world’s richest person. "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too" - says Times’ Editor-in-Chief. 🤷♀️
Everything freaking expensive 📈
What happened — India’s retail inflation data came in and things aren’t too exciting — average retail prices jumped 4.9% YoY for the month of November, the 3rd straight month of increase.
Festive season, coupled with supply issues, production glitches, labor shortages, all compounded into a twisted dynamic. Although GOI’s fiscally conservative responses to deal with COVID’s economic damage probably helped contain the blowback.
Anyway, November figures mark a 0.5% expansion relative to Oct. Majority of the growth was led by food prices, particularly vegetables. Thanks tomato.
Big picture — things aren’t as crazy as in the western world, but if you’re not staying invested beyond papa-recommended FDs, you’re bleeding through the nose.
What’s poppin’ on Venture Street 💸
Flipkart is doubling down on grocery delivery, leading a $100 million round into Ninjacart, a fresh produce supply-chain startup, valuing the business at a $800 million.
Ninjacart works with small farmers on one end to procure fresh fruits and veggies, and then sells it to retailers, restaurants and other reselling businesses on the other — basically acting as a convenient, one-stop platform matching both sides.
Both Walmart and Flipkart had invest $30 million into the biz a year ago, and the 2nd rounds comes as another confidence (and loyalty securing) check, as the rapid grocery market heats up with $$ and competition.
Worth mentioning — Flipkart owns about 11% of the $3 billion online grocery market in India.
Then a quick food tech raise, 🥘
Early stage cloud-kitchen venture Nino Foods closed a $1.6 million seed round from Y Combinator and Soma Capital.
Nino runs a few well known food brands in Mumbai (like Francesca’s) — selling Pizza, Rolls, Burgers, and other fast-food staples solely on platforms like Swiggy and Zomato. Volumes top ~13K orders a month, and fresh $$ will go to expand the model.
Good Glamm is betting big on content ⭐
What’s poppin’ — Good Glamm Group, which runs MyGlamm cosmetics business, made it’s 5th acquisition of the year — buying celebrity media and entertainment company, MissMalini Entertainment. Deal value wasn’t disclosed.
GG has been aggressively pursuing a content-to-commerce approach, buying out category specific content platforms, and then clubbing them with independent cosmetic and lifestyle D2C brands in categories like baby products, new-mom, and cosmetics. Some of their recent buys include POPxo, BabyChakra, Mom & Co., and even ScoopWhoop.
MissMalini, which is a staple for Bollywood gossip, fashion and lifestyle, if you’re into that kinda stuff, also brings several smaller businesses with it, including women communities, talent management agencies, and video production services.
Worth mentioning — Good Glamm’s digital media operation generates 3.5 billion monthly impressions, reaching 150 million unique users! One way to own and control your customer acquisition costs.
Closing out — malls showing some life 💪
A pretty strong festive season, coupled with waning fears of the virus, is pulling people out of their homes and helping mall foot traffic show a spike.
Footfall jumped 70-100% in major urban areas during Oct and Nov — compared to pre-COVID 2019 levels. Similar numbers are holding true in Tier 2, 3 cities. Sales volumes have nearly doubled as well — with strength across product categories.
From being eaten alive by ecommerce to now co-existing alongside, the brick and mortar retailing world finally seems to be turning a corner.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
🧐 Drop plans - Chinese tech is running scared. Popular AI vendor SenseTime, a $17 billion company, postponed its $800 million IPO because of regulatory pressure.
💁♀️ New identity - everyone’s talking about rapid delivery so Grofers rebranded itself to Blinkit. Like 10-min, in a blink. 🙄
💊 Done deal- Pfizer buys Arena Pharmaceuticals in a $6.7 billion deal. Arena is a pioneer of meds for inflammatory conditions, with multiple class-leading drugs in R&D.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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