IPOs 📈
Musks lawsuit, Zomato’s Big Raise, and Meta’s $10B Project.
☀️ Morning! Somehow, it’s already December.
📈 The markets have had a phenomenal run so far in 2024, driven by the AI boom, US interest rate cuts, and the Trump election.
Year-to-Date Summary
Let’s hit it!
1 Big Thing: IPOs continue to fly 💸
Enviro Infra Engineers, a wastewater treatment specialist, listed at a 49% premium on Friday, reflecting the continued vigor in India’s IPO markets, even as 2024 nears its close.
The details: the company designs, builds, and operates wastewater treatment as well as manages water supply systems for local governments. Last year, it generated ₹729 crores in revenue with ~20% profit margins. Public markets now value the business at ₹2,500 crores.
Zoom out: India has seen over 136 public listings so far this year, with 75 on the mainboard and the rest in the SME segment.
With nearly seven more small and mid bets lined up to raise over ₹500 crores, the last month of the year looks busy. Bids worth mentioning:
Suraksha Clinic & Diagnostic: which operates a chain of pathology and radiology labs with 200+ touch points and 8 central labs, across eastern India, with dominance in West Bengal. They plan on raising over ₹850 crores.
Avanse Financial: an education loan financier, Avanse plans on raising over ₹3,500 crores. Dates are not set yet, but the bid was greenlit by SEBI in October earlier this year.
2. Gloves come off in Musk vs. OpenAI 👊
Elon Musk's attorneys filed for a preliminary injunction against OpenAI, its co-founders, and Microsoft—asking the courts to STOP OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit company.
Context: Elon Musk, an early backer of OpenAI, has been at odds with the company since it shifted to a capped-profit structure in 2019.
Elon’s team alleges that OpenAI deviated from its nonprofit mission, engaged in competitive interference including discouraging investors from backing Musk’s xAI, and shared confidential data with Microsoft.
Why care: while Musk’s legal track record has been shaky (Parag says hello), xAI and Grok are quickly positioning as serious competitors to OpenAI.
Just months ago, Elon shocked the AI world by delivering the world’s largest AI supercluster, Colossus, built ground up in under 122 days.
Big picture: with Gen AI services expected to generate over $36 billion this year, the battle isn’t just about tech—it’s about the billions in business at stake.
3. Zomato refills war-chest with $1 billion 💰
Zomato raised $1 billion in a qualified institutional placement, marking its first major fundraise since its 2021 IPO.
Deets: the round saw the company issue ~336 million shares at ₹252.6 each, 10% below public market prices. Demand was stellar—particularly from mutual fund buyers, with Motilal Oswal picking up over 20% of the shares, followed by ICICI Prudential, HDFC, and Kotak.
Why is this important: this move reduces Zomato’s foreign ownership to below 50%, allowing Blinkit, its quick-commerce platform, to adopt an inventory-based model which is typically reserved for local companies.
The hype: India’s quick-commerce market is likely to top $6.5 billion in sales this year. Zomato needs to fend off upstarts like Zepto and cash-rich battle-hardened kings like Amazon.
While we're on big-money raises,
Entrackr reports, men's sexual wellness brand Bold Care is raising $3.5 million in a new round.
Bold Care previously secured an investment from actor Ranveer Singh in December last year, who also joined as a co-founder.
4. Zucks new side project 🌍
Meta is spending $10 billion on an underwater cable project, spanning 25,000 miles globally, per TechCrunch.
Why it matters: Meta’s apps—Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook—drive 22% of global mobile traffic and 10% of fixed wired traffic. While Meta’s goal with this subsea project is not clear, one reason could be to control the pipes as AI-based products add heavier data demands and low-latency needs.
Led by its South Africa office, the project aims for completion in 5-10 years.
Mega theme: Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are projected to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures this year—majorly to fund Gen AI infrastructure.
Pop quiz of the week ⚡
This apparel retailer, with a ₹4,500 crore market cap, has seen stock return over 300% year-to-date. They operate a chain of fashion stores across Tier-2 and below towns of northern and eastern India. Which company is this?What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🍌 All time highs: Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun fulfilled his quirky promise by eating the duct-taped banana artwork, Comedian, which he bought for a cool $6.2 million.
👏 Disruption: ChatGPT celebrated its 2nd birthday last week. Open AI says over 200 million people use the app every single week.
🔫 New leadership: Trump nominated loyalist Kash Patel to lead the FBI.
👋Verma out: MapMyIndia CEO Rohan Verma is stepping down in March 2025 to launch a new B2C venture and will transition to a Non-Executive Director role on the company’s board.
That’s a wrap! Don’t let the Monday blues get to you.
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V2 Retail
V2 Retail Ltd. Made so much money on this one.