Market summary: 📊
India is bouncing all over the place, ending a notch higher on Thursday. US markets were closed for Thanksgiving.
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.70%
Sensex - up 0.78%
Friday shot of espresso ☕
1️⃣ Blue collar relief — GOI is planning on building an employment portal for blue collar workers around the country. An already existing National Database for Unorganized Workers will be linked to a newly proposed job-search portal called Unnati (launched by the labor ministry), where companies will be able to post jobs, and workers will be able to apply for em. Some 10 crore workers are on the original portal currently, with the addressable base extending to 38 crore+ folks.
2️⃣ Showing some life — PayTM’s stock gained for 3-straight days, ending almost 34% higher from its bottom prices. Existing investors Blackrock, Canada Pension Plan, have been continuously loading up on stock, says Bloomberg — trying to average-down their price from the IPO buy-in. Dalal Street’s outlook continued to be meh however, with low price targets and lukewarm commentary. Gonna need flawless execution to get things moving.
ITC’s got tricks up its sleeve 👃
What’s poppin’ — ITC’s Life Sciences business is apparently working on a COVID-19 nasal-spray, finishing R&D and transitioning into clinical trials for the product.
Details are shallow yet, but… ITC will be marketing the spray under the Savlon brand — expanding its already pretty-extensive portfolio of hygiene products under the label. If trials go well, emergency approvals could take 9-12 months.
Alternatives coming up fast — several other global pharma are working on mass market treatments for COVID. On Nov 30, the US FDA is scheduled to vote yay or nay on Merck’s COVID-19 pill called molnupiravir. Then there’s Pfizer in the play as well with pretty aggressive R&D project for oral pills.
Pills and Sprays could reduce the risk of hospitalization with severe condition, helping reduce death count and ease hospital congestions, as vaccinations pick pace.
Anyway, ITC stock barely moved on the news — up like 1.23%.
Tiger hunts another Unicorn 🦄
Entrackr says investing-app Upstox raised some $25 million from Tiger Global (with the round still open) — at a $3.4 billion valuation. That’s the 6th Indian-startup to become unicorn in November alone! 🎉
Founded almost a decade ago as a discount broker called RKSV, Upstox rebranded itself and adopted a sleeker look over time to attract mobile-trading millennial users, and to compete against Zerodha.
Currently the platform reports some 4M users, with revenues topping ₹155 crores for the year before COVID. Things have obviously changed since, thanks to the meme-stock frenzy. 🖖
Meanwhile, quick look at an early stage deal, ☝️
Park+, a car-parking platform, closed a $25 million Series B round from Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners.
Park+ sells an app that lets people reserve parking spots, as well as get their car washed at local spots, buy insurance, and even get FAStags. Then the company also sells software + installation to malls, communities, and others looking to digitize their parking facilities, managing some 90K parking spots across 6 major cities, catering to 450K cars daily!
Quick look at Uber’s bet on pot 🍁
After buying out Drizzly to enter the alcohol-delivery business, Uber is now looking to expand its addressable market with weed — allowing customers in Canada to start ordering cannabis through UberEats.
Uber will work with an exclusive cannabis retailer Tokyo Store to make the deal happen. Legally, its still a strict no to “deliver” grass at the doorstep lol, so Uber will allow for purchase and and pickup at the nearby retail store.
FYI, Uber’s food delivery business, UberEats, now forms almost 56% of its total business, while ride hailing takes a backseat. Tis the way to keep paying bills!
Worth mentioning — worldwide legal cannabis sales are set to top $31 billion in 2021, a jump of almost 41% YoY. Game changin’ everywhere.
Otherwise an easy news day folks! News flow gonna be shallow for the next couple of days with Thanksgiving and everything. We’ll see ya with more tomorrow 🤙
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
🗼 5G ready - Airtel conducted India’s first 5G trials with Nokia networking gear, in the outskirts of Kolkata. Other players should follow.
🎥 Short Video, what? - Spotify is testing a feature, allowing short music videos inside its app, taking on TikTok, reels and others. Please, no!
🧐 China, the QA analyst - China is asking Tencent to submit all its apps for a review before a new release, as it tightens the chain of its big tech companies.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
You can forward this email or share FC on social media by clicking the button below. Thanks and Ciao! 😀