Loan me some 💰
Zomato killed it, vernacular is the way, and King of IPOs.
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Market summary: 📊
Quite an enthusiastic day in India with the Zomato IPO, which helped market land slightly higher. US had a positive day too, with inflation worries rubbing off soon!
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.12%
Nasdaq - up 0.17%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.26%
Sensex - up 0.25%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
✅ Bring the data back — RBI will stop card network Mastercard from adding any new customers in India until the company complies with India’s data localization norms for payment companies, which basically demand that all user-data be stored within Indian territories. Other foreign card providers in the bad boy club include Amex, and Diner’s Club — both banned for similar reasons.
How did we do? — Day 1 of Zomato was a blockbuster hit, as you’d expect — with the bid fully subscribed by end of day. Retail led the party, with 2.7x bids pouring in, with institutional buyers’ bids filling 98%. PayTM Money says 27% of the IPO applicants on its app were under 25 year old. Meanwhile, old-school investors continue to litter social with unsolicited caution as though the world’s about to end 🤷♀️
Apple’s new move, consumer lending 🍎
Apple made half of fintech shit a brick after news broke the company, along with Goldman Sachs, is launching a new Buy-Now-Pay-Later product offering, making it easy for Apple Pay users to shop on credit.
Rising phenomenon -— ideal for large ticket ecommerce purchases, the emerging credit-at-checkout service has become extremely popular during COVID, increasingly displacing credit cards. No credit records are pulled, and lending decisions are made solely on alternative data. The young LOVE it.
$100 billion+ in was processed via BNPL in 2020, nearly 2% of ALL global ecommerce volume, expected to top $300B+ in volumes by 2024. It’s a wildfire!
Going forward — looking at the success of the Apple Card, and existing usage for Apple Pay, Wallet, etc. odds are BNPL is a win straight out the stable, further strengthening Apple’s non-hardware Services business which is already churning $90B+ a year in revenues! Bet your ass Google will follow.
Big picture — the everything is fintech thesis lookin’ inevitable. Gotta love being a FAANG stockholder.
Meanwhile Affirm stock took a 10% dump when the news broke!
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Vernacular keeps pullin’ in dough 💰
Online storytelling platform Pratilipi, a Medium-like publishing platform in local languages, raised $48 million in its Series D round led by PUB-G maker Krafton.
Launched as an online hub for writers — the company has lately expanded into avenues like audio, video and comic-based content. 400K creators and 30M+ readers frequent the platform.
Krafton’s entry here is kinda intriguing though — the company’s other bets in India focus on gaming, game streaming, e-sports, or the future of Metaverse. So what’s brewing?
Key takeaway — not lost on us that the vernacular content creation, publishing, facilitation, and distribution landscape has suddenly caught fire, with several big money deals rolling in this week alone!
Meanwhile in the western world, ☝️
Gamer-favorite Discord acquired Sentropy — an enterprise AI tool startup, that will help Discord detect and remove online abuses on its platform.
With its recent partnership with Sony, Discord is preparing for escape velocity, and all moderation problems better be plugged before shit hits the fan.
How it hangs, INFY? 🧐
Earrings season is bacc — Infosys the No.2 IT king in India met with investors to discuss its numbers — overall an approving show. 👏
Revenues bounced up 21%YoY to $3.8 billion
Profits were above expectations, but operating margins lagged a bit — at 23.7% thanks to extra costs of operating during the second wave
Guided for ~15% revenue growth for this year
Management’s tone was pretty upbeat, re-emphasizing that while operating challenges prevail, growth in the IT biz is BACK, which sent INFY stock up 2% today.
Key takeaway — accelerated shift to cloud is giving IT companies a unique opportunity to capitalize on and catch some wind in their sails. So far, the leaders seem to be doing a fair job.
Closing out — King of dem IPOs 👊
Old school represent, Life Insurance Corporation got the nod from the cabinet committee on economic affairs to go ahead with its IPO.
Analysts say LIC could be India’s most valuable company right out the gate, ~$250B in Market cap (higher than Reliance’s $200B).
Gonna take a while though, including some changes to the Company’s Act which prohibit wide ownership of government’s businesses — but when it does come out, this is gonna be the old school gang’s Zomato moment of the year…
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
👑On Top - Meesho displaced Instagram to become the most downloaded app on Play Store in India, with over 50 million downloads.
👨💼Freshers needed - Infosys will ramp us hiring of freshers, adding 35K more folks in FY2022, as cloud boom brightens prospects.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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