Now or never in EVs 💪
Crypto regulation, Oil ain't dead, and Oyo wishes.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Market summary: 📊
India carried last week’s momentum into the new week, ending Monday up a bit. US had a lame session as Delta variant cases confuse the markets.
US:
S&P 500 - down 0.094%
Nasdaq - up 0.01%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.12%
Sensex - up 0.23%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
✅ Adjusting sails — Amara Raja batteries plonked $5 million in a Series A battery-tech startup, Log9. The company basically makes aluminum-fuel cells that go into electrified 2 and 3 wheelers, which it plans on licensing out to EV makers. Meanwhile, Amara Raja is also planning on spending $1B+ on acquiring and building assets over the next 5 to 7 years — to adjust its sails for the inevitable electric vehicle future.
✅ Vacation on Mars anyone? — NASA is looking for four commoners interested in checking out how it hangs on Mars! Folks will be made to live on Mars Dune Alpha, a 3-D simulation of the exact conditions, replicated inside the Johnson Space Center in Texas, for almost a year, with minimal contact with family and friends — all to help understand our odds for a legit Mars exploration mission. You need a master’s in Maths, Computer science or Engineering, and must be aged between 30-35 to apply though. Kinda sick!
Global race for EV domination 🔌
US Senate lawmakers (the upper-house equivalent) are close to paving the way for a $1.2 trillion infrastructure upgrade package, which among other things, includes major consequences for accelerated adoption of EVs.
What’s coming:
$174 billion will be spent to set up 500K charging stations across the country
Biden says 50% of all cars on the road by 2030 should be EVs — ambitious, but possible!
The admin will get automakers like Ford, GM, and the others easy access to capital to fund EV factories, and hold them accountable
Biden is showing tremendous aggression basically because China and Europe are far ahead in terms of EV adoption, with more than 10% of cars sold right now being EVs in those regions, with numbers doubling every year.
US, still remains under 5%. India, and others? Under 1%.
Why care — with 3 major world regions pulling away, other global nations, including India, will have to double up and accelerate own adoption, or risk being left behind. Fireworks in the next budget aren’t out of reach.
Then onto crypto currencies, 📈
Few legislators slapped the infra bill with last-minute amendments demanding more scrutiny of crypto-trades, including proposals of levying higher taxes, as well as getting the SEC (US equivalent of the SEBI) to monitor the asset class more actively.
Crypto-maximalists on the other hand, wouldn’t take any involvement from Washington and its cronies — claiming government involvement runs counter to the promise of decentralization.
Why should I care — well, the market took the entire debate as a net positive, with “enhanced monitoring” expected to build a pathway for more institutional money to roll in — and $BTC, $ETH, were all flying high!
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UpGrad joins the 🦄 party
Indian-MOOC platform UpGrad raised a massive $185 million from Temasek, IFC and IIFL, at a $1.2 billion valuation, making it the 21st unicorn of 2021!
Edtech has once again picked steam, as another academic year stretches into a mix of online and offline. Category leaders Byju’s, Unacademy have leveraged the time to be active with M&A, as well as new product launches.
UpGrad itself has a $250M acquisition mandate it is pursuing. Anyway, with a revenue run-rate of $165M+, growing 80%+, the numbers do look pretty solid!
Big picture — China keen on turning its edtech players into non-profits has opened floodgates for foreign capital in Indian edtech. Ain’t stoppin’ soon!
While we’re on capital raises, 💰
Sapphire Foods, the Indian franchise of US-based food corporation YUM! Brands raised ₹1,150 crores from a bunch of PE giants, to spoil competitor Devyani’s IPO party.
Sapphire operates some 437 KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell stores across India, Sri Lanka and Maldives, and competes against Devyani International, as well as another of Yum Brands’ Indian franchisee, called Burman Hospitality.
EVs may be the future, but Oil still rules 🛢️
If you’re into those sectors, Saudi’s Aramco blasted a pretty decent quarter, as oil prices globally recover from the 2020 death-sentence, with economic engine bouncing back.
Quick look at numbers:
Profits jumped 288% to $25.5 billion
Cash flows of $23 billion, up nearly 4x from last year
Saudi’s always pay their debts — with net debt falling down to 19.4%, helped by the sale of a oil-pipelines business
Also, Aramco said it’ll invest aggressively in improving its production capacity — while its competition is tied on a leash by the “green” agenda of western regulators.
Bottomline — as the world starts to stand on its two feet, commodities will only see better days. Oil is already up 40% this year to a record $70 per barrel. There’s time until we save the planet, until then, easy $ on the table…
Closing out — Oyo wishes🤷♀️
The hospitality startup is apparently talking to bankers, including JP Morgan, Kotak Mahindra, and Citi, to get the docs in order for its own IPO.
Without clear signs of travel bouncing back domestically, and a long term plan to ensure profitability, seems weird to come shooting at the target though.
But… doesn’t take a genius to see Softbank and the other late stage investors are probably getting nervous, keen on exiting out of stale themes like holiday-rentals and into more audacious frontier ideas!
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
💰 Take the prize - Byju’s will offer ₹2 crores to Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra and ₹1 crores to the 6 other medal winning athletes. Edtech, India’s goldmine!
❌ Not now - Nirav Modi managed to win an appeal restricting his extradition from the UK. Summer vacay extended.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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