Greasing hands 🤙

Nazara's play, Netflix wins, and Fin-fluencers rule.

Sep 21, 2021

Hi 👋, Tanvi here.

Filter Coffee hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump-start your day.

Let’s go ahead and get started:

Market summary: 📊

Chinese real estate meltdown caused a small Tsunami around the world — India pulled back considerably, with financial names feeling extra heat. US had an even harsher reaction, with tech flogged in broad daylight.

US:

S&P 500 - down 1.70%
Nasdaq - down 2.10%

India:

Nifty 50 - down 1.07%
Sensex - down 0.89%

What’s brewing hot? ☕

✅ Learning the ropes — The Morning Context broke news that a couple of Amazon’s lawyers bribed Indian government officials using portion of fees paid to them, to “get things done” lol. The allegations were brought up by a whistleblower and Amazon has now apparently opened an investigation. Locally, the ED and CCI are investigating the matter as well, while US regulators are pissed too, as trade regulations explicitly forbid bribing officials of foreign governments. But are you surprised tho!

✅ Coinbase caved — looks like mainstream adoption of decentralized finance (crypto based lending) will have to wait a bit longer after Coinbase decided to shut its lending product which had originally forced the US SEC to open an investigation. Kinda ironic that only a week ago had Brian Armstrong decided to play hard and “expose” the SEC on Twitter for blocking the program in the first place.

Nazara made another move 👀

What happened — gaming company Nazara Tech made another acquisition, this time buying out OML Entertainment for ₹73 crores.

OML (which stands for Only Much Louder) is a content studio and talent agency that creates streaming shows, manages a bunch of popular YouTubers including Tanmay Bhat, as well as owns IP ranging from Music shows (Bacardi NH7 Weekender) to HipHop Leagues (Breezer Vivid Shuffle) to comedy events.

OML will be a part of Nazara’s subsidiary which primarily conducts eSports tournaments. With online gaming evolving from a single player experience into a connected social experience, Nazara hopes the acquisition will allow it to tap into a wider audience at the intersection of gaming + entertainment.

Bottomline —so far this year the company has made 3 acquisitions, spending close to ₹300 cores, and while the markets were shitting bricks yesterday, stock was up a couple points, signaling approval.

What’s poppin’ in Venture Town 💵

First up, fintech — FloBiz, out to build a neobank for small businesses, closed a $31 million Series B round from Sequoia Capital, Think Investments, and others.

FloBiz currently sells an app called myBillBook, a complete billing and accounting tool allowing small businesses to automate invoices, streamline inventory management, reporting, etc. which the company hopes to leverage to push more financial products down the line.

The app has more than a million monthly active users, processing $1 billion+ in transactions.

Then turning over to lending, ☝️

ePayLater, a credit solutions provider to small businesses raised $10 million from Swiss based Responsability Investments, and Blue Ashva Capital. ePayLater offers a BNPL-like offering for small businesses to finance quick inventory purchases, and has processed over ₹1,000 crores in credit to date.

Netflix’s investments paying off 😎

Nobody cares about award shows anymore, but last night the 2021 Emmys took place, and Netflix edged out content king HBO, once again, to win a record 44 awards!

Quick look at some major wins and how they compared:

For Netflix, the Crown and Queen’s Gambit dominated, with 11 awards each
HBO got ~130 nominations, but won barely 19 awards

Disney+ saw its tally rise to 14 compared to 8 last year. Pfft

Lastly, limping along, AppleTV+ won 10, including 7 for its comedy show Ted Lasso. Quit already!

Here’s a full list if you’re hunting show recommendations.

Why care — when Netflix had announced it will invest in making its own content in 2012 (thanks House of Cards), people were quick to ridicule. But self owned content has been the bedrock of the company’s acquisition and growth flywheel.

Bottomline — this year Netflix will spend another $17 billion on making shows + movies, more than all media companies, except Disney.

Closing out — financial influencers reign supreme💪

Bloomberg did a hot piece on how influencers are making more $$ selling digital financial products than majority of the people working on Wall Street, as fintech platforms look at alternate channels to lower customer acquisition costs. Good read.

Some stats we found interesting — per mobile app tracking firm App Annie, hours spent on finance apps spiked 90% in the US since the pandemic. Specifically trading and investing apps jumped up 130%, while downloads were up 20%. Similar or higher stats could be coming out of India as well.

What else are we snackin’ 🍿

🗣️ Getting ready - Amazon brings out a voice shopping feature in Hindi for Android users ahead of the upcoming festival season.

😎 Bought the dip - El Salvador bought 150 more Bitcoin, taking its total BTC reserve to 700 coins.

Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.

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