LiDAR deal 🤝
Upskilling, Zuck’s play, and Banks ready for worst.
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:
Market summary: 📊
US:
S&P 500 - up 1.00%
Nasdaq 100 - up 0.60%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.83%
Sensex - up 0.95%
Did Zuck’s influence get TikTok banned? 🤔
Wall Street Journal believes that Mark Zuckerberg might have had quite a bit to do with getting TikTok in trouble in the US. And that’s excluding the roll out of a knock off clone, Reels, on Instagram a couple weeks ago. Zuck had apparently been part of a crusade getting Washington DC politicians to see the risk that Chinese big tech poses to unassuming consumers.
Via repeated trips to meet politicians and through speeches, Zuckerberg over the last 12 months had apparently highlighted the threat Chinese products pose to freedom of speech and privacy respecting citizens. Among his rounds of meetings with politicians at various levels, the highlight of his effort was a private dinner with President Trump, where he sang the same songs again.
Anyway, while lobbying is quite common in high-level politics, Zuck’s company is the one benefitting the most from TikTok’s demise so it's really hard to say if national security or profits were at the heart of the CEO’s conviction. Read here.
IBM doing its part 🖥️
The latest to join MSFT, FB and GOOGL to upskill India is IBM. The company announced a collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to offer digital skill training to learners in India, to fill the gap that university education breeds.
IBM will curate online courses from its Open P-TECH platform and will offer these for free through NSDC’s eSkill India portal. Courses in emerging technologies like cybersecurity, blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning, Internet of Things along with professional skills like design thinking to learners between 18 to 22 years will be offered for free.
While the platform is currently available in English, regional language support for Hindi and 10 more Indian languages including Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Gujarati, Sindhi, Urdu, Bengali will be coming soon.
Well, anything futuristic and digital coming from IBM is a bit rich, but kudos to them for making the effort. India’s hundreds of millions internet users could use all the help. Read more.
While we’re on the subject of pretentious benevolence by Big Tech,
Apple’s Korea operations will commit nearly $84 million to support small businesses in Korea to appease the Korean anti-trust regulator who has been investigating Apple for anti-competitive conduct. The government is accusing Apple of forcing mobile carriers to pay for advertising and repairs on warranty costs for iPhones, allegedly offering unfair terms. Read more.
Apocalypse ready 💪
With the RBI breathing down their necks, India’s private banks are ready and armed up with sufficient capital buffers to take on any defaults that may arise from India’s COVID-19 inflicted economic damage. Thanks to recent big pocketed raises.
In layman’s terms, most banks have sold bonds or raised capital by selling shares to institutional investors — think large corporates, insurance companies, mutual funds etc. This has helped banks boost their cash positions to levels we’ve not seen since 2004 in some cases. Management of the banks also believe that with the capital at disposal, a slew of growth measures could also be entertained in time. If you’d like to geek yourself out on the details...
Lidar maker going public 😎
Lidar — a light emitting RADAR, or a device that beams laser lights at high speeds and then measures the reflection of that light using a sensor, has found terrific use in modern self driving vehicles. Now a company that pioneers portable Lidars is going public via a SPAC merger.
Luminar, the company backed by maverick founder and investor Peter Thiel, will be merging with a special purpose acquisition company, in a $3.4 billion deal. The merger aims to get Luminar’s products onto production lines of major automobile companies. After the deal closes, Luminar will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker “LAZR.”
Interesting fact: Luminar was founded by an 18 year old engineer, who took $100K from Peter Theil, as part of the Theil fellowship program, to quit college and go start a company. Oyo rooms’ Ritiesh Agarwal is another well known figure to have gone through the program.
Anyway, traditional automakers lack the motivation to spend on R&D for emerging technologies, and that’s where independent developers like Luminar come in. The company counts Volvo among its most prized partners.
Takeaway: LiDAR became the centerpiece of the self-driving R&D as the tech became indispensable to creating 3D maps of a vehicle's surroundings. Portability and power efficiency in design were key obstacles. By 2025, estimates suggest the industry may top even $3 billion in market size, growing 20% each year.
Tweet of the day -
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
👍 Plasma treatment okayed - The US health watchdog has given emergency authorisation for the use of blood plasma to treat coronavirus patients in the country, saying the benefits of the treatment outweigh any potential risks. Over 70,000 patients in the country had been treated with convalescent plasma, which is made using the blood of people who have recovered from coronavirus infections.
🧐 Making big tech pay - France has ordered Facebook to pay more than $100 million in back taxes, as well as a $30 million penalty. Tech companies operating remotely find myriad ways to circumvent local taxes, but countries across the world, most notably in Europe, have been vehemently demanding their fair share.
🏥 Makeshift hospitals for COVID - The PM CARES Fund Trust will finance two 500-bed COVID-19 makeshift hospitals in Bihar. In a series of tweets, the PMO said the 500-bed hospital in Patna will be inaugurated today, the 500-bed hospital at Muzaffarpur will be inaugurated in the coming days. While the swiftness is commendable, why did we wait to improve our medical infrastructure for so long?
✋ Come on Donald - Twitter again placed a disclaimer on the Trump’s tweet criticizing the promotion of drop boxes by the opposition party as an option for voters. Trump is battling the opposition over remote (mail in ballot) voting in the upcoming presidential elections. Twitter said the tweet violated the company’s “civic and election integrity” rules.
💰 Big Banks hops on VC train - Goldman Sachs Group is considering raising a venture and growth fund of around $2 billion, a move that would make it a bigger player in the competitive world of technology investing. The size of the fund is clearly huge, and could give the bank sufficient weight in the industry, particularly in late stage deals.
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! 😀