Future is bright 🌟
Elon's chip, FB's jab, and Govt's startup boost.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
Filter Coffee hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump start your day.
Sign up below for free. 👇
Let’s go ahead and get started:
Sorcery 💨
Musk’s Neuralink demo has gotten mixed reactions — the nerds are fascinated while the average Joe is, and I’m kindly putting this, horribly freaked out. Musk debuted his brain-machine interface chip, which gets implanted inside your skull via a minimally invasive procedure. The demo showed a trio of pigs having it on.
Neuralink explores the next frontier of human-machine interaction where Musk believes we can use AI to help augment processing for the human brain. Sounds fun and sexy, until they take you in to bore a 3 inch hole into your skull to place that chip in. Pass.
Anyway, the roughly 23mm in diameter chip will be critical in solving major neural conditions — including Alzeimers, Dementia and other neuro-spinal conditions according to the founder. Analysts and enthusiasts got their first look at the product.
Spurring innovation nationwide 👏
Looking to catalyze innovation coming out of India’s hinterland, the government has launched a startup e-contest 'Chunauti' with special focus on seeding software ventures in Tier-II towns of India. The program aims to identify about 300 startups working towards improvement of lives in non-metro cities, offering them with seed funding of up to ₹ 25 lakhs.
Early stage ventures in the areas of Edu Tech, Agri Tech, Fintech, Supply Chain and Logistic management, Infrastructure, Healthcare as well as Jobs and skilling will be prioritized.
Selected startups will be given incubation facilities, mentorship, security testing facilities, and well as a range of other similar resources. In addition, each company will be paid ₹ 10,000 per month upto a period of 6 months. ₹ 95 crore budget over a period of three years for this programme has been earmarked. Check out applications here.
Fund that growth… 🙌
IIT Kanpur-backed ecommerce venture, Phool.co, raised $1.4 million in a pre-Series A funding round. The round was led by IAN Fund and San Francisco-based Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.
Satiating India’s liking for incense, the startup runs a platform selling a range of incense sticks made from floral waste, and not regular charcoal. Also, the company’s biomaterial innovation knows no bounds. They have also indigenously developed ‘Fleather’ (sustainable leather made from flowers) which has been pitched as a viable alternative to animal hide, and recently even won an award from PETA. Quite impressive.
Turning heads to fintech,
Blue collar-focused lending startup, Avail Finance, has raised $11.5 million in a Series B from Alphawave Incubation Fund and Matrix Partners.
Avail addresses capital needs of India’s blue-collared workforce - a market of easily more than 400 million citizens, who are currently underserved by traditional institutions. Collateral free loans are capped at ₹ 20,000 while the company also offers an interest free loan of ₹ 5,000 a month. It's a great way to get underbanked users familiarized with the credit system, while helping them build history.
Moving on...
PayU Co-founder, Nitin Gupta, is in advanced talks to raise $18-20 million for his stealth mode fintech startup UniOrbit. Accel Partners and Lightspeed will lead the seed round. Gupta has apparently been working on the idea since the beginning of the year, and considering second-time fintech founders’ capital raise track record (CRED, Jupiter etc.), there should be little problems for Nitin to line up investors.
Quick rundown of Big Tech 🖥️
Exodus from big cities caught more wind as Pinterest cancelled its lease for a premium office space in Downtown San Francisco, in favor of plans to go increasingly remote.
The company had signed a pre-emptive deal for a space about 490,000 square feet large, to be fitted with A-list amenities including pools, saunas, sports courts — you name it. Backing out of its agreement, the company will pay the realtor $89.5 million, which otherwise would’ve been a $440 million expenditure.
Remote work enthusiasts cheered their predictions while big officials are scared of the commercial real estate market cratering if this pattern continues.
In other news,
Apple finally terminated the developer account of Epic Games over the weekend after the deadline Apple had issued Epic Games to remove the alternate payment option, passed. Earlier, a court appeal had failed to stop Apple from doing so. Users will be unable to download, update or reinstall some Epic launched games. Read more.
Lastly, Zuckerberg issued a scathing takedown of Apple’s app store policies, in a speech to his employees. His words — “Apple has a unique stranglehold as a gatekeeper on what gets on phones”.
Well, any criticism of other companies’ practices is a bit rich coming from Zuck, but developers annoyed by Apple will take support from anything and anyone right now. Here’s more.
Paving way for a new Future 🛒
A chapter closed on an era in India’s retail yesterday when RIL wrapped up its $3.7 billion buyout deal for Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail. Biyani single handedly had set into motion the big-box retailing shift in India over the last 2 decades, but made two major mistakes along the way — too much debt to finance growth and sluggish adoption of ecommerce.
Come COVID, foot traffic fell, revenues tanked, and the mountain of debt crumbled. Startups, other leading ecommerce platforms, and cash rich Reliance were in a much better position to absorb the shocks, while Future inevitably cracked. As of March, the company had more than 1,700 stores and now with all of those in its pocket, Reliance is the largest organized Grocery business in the country.
Anyway, the deal is a game changer for Reliance. Reliance’s unique unified ecommerce and hyper retail ambitions will be complemented with Future’s stores sprinkled all over the nation. In addition to that, most Future businesses are cash flow positive which gives RIL useful fuel for expansion. Read more about the details of the deal here.
We think this tweet sums up the outcome really well…
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🤝 Another giant from Thiel - Peter Thiel-backed Compass Pathways filed for an IPO, adding to a flurry of filings from tech companies during this week. The UK based mental health company which designs personalized mental-health patient care programs, will offer American depository shares on the Nasdaq.
😟 Massive casino layoffs - one of the world ‘s most famed resort and casino operators, MGM Resorts, informed its staff it would lay off 18,000 furloughed employees in the United States as the pandemic continues to weigh down demand. That forms about 30% of their workforce. Sign of what’s coming in India?
🥤 Coke joins layoff bandwagon - Coca-Cola is offering voluntary redundancy to 4,000 workers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico and is preparing itself to offer similar deals in other markets. Closure of bars, restaurants, and tourist locations has eaten into the company’s revenues and profits like never before.
👊 Battling imposters - In a trademark dispute case, Amul has obtained a restraining order to stop fake websites and bank accounts being circulated with domain names either prefixed or suffixed with the name Amul.
📚 Edtech marketing warfare - Unacademy has been roped in as the official partner for the Indian Premier League for three seasons. Earlier the company’s bid for title sponsorship fell flat against Dream 11, but this partnership should offer them considerable marketing exposure.
🏛️ Ooo, punches thrown - inMobi’s Roposo has been slapped with a lawsuit for music rights infringement by T-Series, alleging “blatant, extensive and wilful” infringing of T-Series’ copyrighted works. The music label has sought a permanent injunction to stop Roposo from using its copyright material.
Hey👋 , you think any of your friends would enjoy Filter Coffee like you? Connect us!
You can just forward this email or share FC on social media by clicking the button below. Thanks and Ciao! 😀