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: 📊
Decent start to the week, with Sensex holding 45K and going for more. US markets circled in place, with tech making some moves as holiday digital spending looks promising.
US:
S&P 500 - down 0.19%
Nasdaq 100 - up 0.54%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.73%
Sensex - up 0.77%
The LiDAR billionaire 😎
Remember Luminar Tech? The maker of innovative, low cost LiDARs—basically light emitting radars that blast a million light rays and then capture responses to build a 3D map of the surrounding areas for self driving cars. Well they went public last week, and the stock soared 45%+ on day 1, making the 25-year old founder a billionaire.
Dude started the company when he was 17, got backed by Peter Theil, and managed to get a SPAC to take his venture public in under 8 years. Luminar’s products have found their way into the finest self-driving projects, with big orders rolling in from Volvo and the likes. Damn impressive. 👏
Amazon breathes life into Blackberry 📱
Last week, Amazon’s AWS cloud unit signed a deal with old-friend Blackberry to develop and market a cloud data platform for vehicles, integrating Blackberry’s automotive software and making it available via AWS cloud.
Some hand holding—”smart” cars are all the hype right now. The amount of semiconductor chips and software going into vehicles is at an all time high, with consumers increasingly demanding more automation. The eventual bid of course is 100% self driving, but a lot more functionality will be ramped in “helping” human drivers control better, before we get to full autonomy.
Now automotive vendors aren’t exactly software and sensing experts (they’re getting there). So they rely heavily on outside vendors like Nvidia and Xilinx for processors, Qualcomm for 4G chips, Luminar or ON Semi for sensors etc. The same way, glue taping all these components with underlying software and making the car “intelligent” is a very attractive opportunity. Imagine if cars were cloud connected, sharing data real time, giving car makers insights into how their fleet works etc. Hot hot hot, with tons of room for more innovation.
Back to the AWS move—this new cloud based software, called ‘IVY’, basically streamlines data gathering and management, and can be used by any car maker. It will log back real-time data to AWS’ servers on how a car and its systems acted in certain conditions, giving manufacturers specific insights that otherwise would only be available in testing.
Anyway, a dead Blackberry had been gasping for breath, and investors are wondering if this could be the lifeboat the company desperately needed, that perhaps opens a path for more work with Amazon in cloud computing. Stock has nearly doubled now over last month.
Flipkart’s maturity into adulthood 🛒
Walmart is ready to pull the trigger and take Flipkart public, with an IPO of nearly $10 billion that would more than double their investment in the company from 4 years ago. It's a bummer though that the IPO will be listed in the US.
How we got here—Walmart acquired 77% stake in Flipkart 4 years ago, as the legacy retail giant was reeling under assault from Bezos and company, frantically looking to enter the ecommerce game and land a counter punch. Then in July this year, they pumped another $1.2 billion in Flipkart, as COVID presented a miraculous opportunity to double down, bloating Flipkart’s valuation to nearly $24.9 billion.
The pandemic blessed digital business across the board, and with the public markets HOT for digital ventures like never before, the timing simply couldn’t have been better. It looks like this transaction will be the largest IPO by a company based in India on an overseas exchange.
Expectations are set for valuation of about $40 billion, almost a 60% bump from previous levels, and Goldman Sachs is the chosen banker to lead the transaction. Doesn’t look so ridiculous when you consider the MASSIVE addressable opportunity at the disposal of the company here in India.
What matters: There is no doubt the listing will be a hit. Global investors are hungrier than ever to get a piece of the Indian market and Silicon Valley peers are killing it on Wall Street. But we think it absolutely sucks that the average Indian retail investor can’t buy into one of the finest growth stories India has ever produced. Why this bhed bhav? 🤔
Lastly, cash in the bank and scrutiny from retail shareholders will make Flipkart a lot more polished and better armed for its bloody battle with Amazon and Reliance for local e-commerce dominance.
Ask grandma to UPI 💳
Google Pay is making it easy for users to buy gift cards from online and offline stores, via a newly forged partnership with Qwikcilver’s consumer arm Woohoo.
Woohoo partners with a multitude of brands to allow people to acquire credit which can be cashed in later at some 1,500 online and offline locations. Good ol’ boring gifts cards have existed for centuries but are now slowly picking pace in India, thanks to a digitization and ease of access. If you’re ever struggled with “picking” gifts, you know they’re a lifesaver.
Anyway, both companies plan on working closely with local vendors and Kirana stores too, hoping that’ll help alleviate some of the uncertainty COVID has brought to small businesses. Otherwise, so far the service facilitates transactions with some 250 merchants in India with big names including Amazon, Flipkart, Grofers, Snapdeal, Bigbasket, Cleartrip and MakeMyTrip onboard.
Bottomline: be shocked to know that the global gift card industry is expected to top over $1 trillion in 2020, with a solid boost from COVID as regular customers load up advance cards to help small businesses get some money in. In India, this is still a nascent market but growth will inevitably follow, and it's no surprise that the payment ventures are jumping on the opportunity—which business doesn’t like money in before a service has been delivered?
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🚀 Space bound - SpaceX on sunday launched its 21st Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission for NASA, bound for the International Space Station. This is the first launch for this redesigned cargo Dragon, and also the first mission for SpaceX’s new series of CRS missions. Cargo includes supplies for the Space Station and its crew as well as experimental supplies for the research being conducted on the station.
Can’t believe it’s just 3 weeks to Christmas.
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! 😀