Humanoids 🤖
Economic Troubles, Mega IPOs, and More in AI.
☀️ Morning!
🗓️ Christmas was chill, but market-santa came bearing no gifts.
📈 Sensex was flat yesterday, and the Nifty 50 added 0.1%.
💰 It is a big-$ Christmas for Musk though, with xAI closing $6 billion in fresh money. This brings x’s total cash trove to $12 billion.
Let’s hit it!
1 big thing: Humanoids gaining traction 🤖
Open AI is the latest to explore building Humanoid robots, per latest report by the Information.
What matters: with the cost of AI going down and smart models becoming easily available, the real world application of AI is expected to catch wind.
In other words, if a system like ChatGPT can understand us and our surroundings, what else can we extend it to in the real world?
Recently, major investments and deals show momentum building up fast.
Physical Intelligence, a leader in the robotics space, recently raised $400 million from Jeff Bezos and the likes
Figure AI raised $675 million earlier this year, working closely with Open AI
In last three years, Amazon 2x’ed the number of robots it uses, which today could be over 1 million units
Tesla displayed some promising robotics tech at its autonomy event few months back
Worth noting: Elon Musk claims there could be 1 billion humanoids on the planet by 2040. Tesla is rapidly working towards the Optimus system.
Big picture: general-purpose AI has long been a challenge, but significant progress has been made in the last few years. If the trend continues, applications could accelerate — including robotics, autonomy, and more.
2. Economy works, but not the brightest 👎
India’s economy is expected to grow around 6.5% this financial year, according to the finance ministry. That’s the good news.
The bad news? That number is at the lower end of the earlier projection of 6.5-7%.
Why it matters: a slight miss in the growth target isn’t surprising. But, with inflation at 5-6%, real growth is relatively low, which is concerning.
Blame game: government attributes this slowdown to geopolitical factors.
The markets ain’t buying that, citing high interest rates set by RBI, inflation, as well as policy hurdles like over-taxation for the issues.
Zoom out: markets have been pricing this sluggishness for a while now, which can be noted in major indices like the Sensex and Nifty 50 mostly trading sideways for the past 3-4 months.
Big picture: the strength of the U.S. dollar, movement towards re-shoring of manufacturing to the west, are some of the issues further making things challenging in the short term.
3. Mega IPOs in the making 🚀
IndiQube Spaces, which is a workspace solutions provider filed documents to go public — looking to raise ₹850 crore.
₹750 crore will come from fresh equity shares, while ₹100 crore will be raised through an offer for sale.
The funds will be used for capital expenditure, debt repayment, and general corporate purposes.
The backdrop: co-working spaces took a hit during the pandemic, with many, including WeWork, facing bankruptcies and closures. But the market is rebounding.
IndiQube, backed by WestBridge Capital, operates 103 centers across 13 cities, managing 7.76 million sq. ft.
Bengaluru alone accounts for 60 locations. It competes with players like Awfis, Innov8, and 91Springboard.
The numbers: For Q1 FY24, IndiQube reported ₹242.3 crore in revenue but posted a loss of ₹42.11 crore.
While we are on IPOs,
Greaves Electric, a two- and three-wheeler EV maker, is joining the party on D-Street following in Ola Electric’s footsteps. It’s eyeing ₹1,000 crore through a mix of fresh issuance and an offer for sale of 18.5 crore shares.
The funds will fuel product R&D, battery assembly, and manufacturing expansion.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🙏 End of an era: Former PM Manmohan Singh, passed away at 92 yesterday.
📊 AI committee: RBI plans to set up a committee which will develop guidelines for using AI in finance
And that’s a wrap. Pour yourself an extra one this weekend.
We’ll be back like clockwork on Monday!
Hit that 💚 if you liked this issue.
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