Old school grocery 🛒
Insta’s win, Semi production boost, and another Indian CEO.
Market summary: 📊
India’s downward trend continued for third straight session. US continues to remain volatile — finishing really strong in yesterday’s session after a series of down days.
US:
S&P 500 - up 1.63%
Nasdaq - up 2.35%
India:
Nifty 50 - down 0.60%
Sensex - down 0.57%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
1️⃣ Made it — damn the negative press, the truth is folks can’t stop scrolling. Instagram joins an elite group of “unkillable” apps, now reporting 2 billion monthly active users. Took Kevin Systrom’s baby 8 years to get to the first billion, and 3 more under Zuck’s patronage to get to the next billion. FWIW, $FB acquired the app in 2012 for a shockingly low $1 billion, which now perhaps drives 50% of Meta’s market-cap, and is core to its Metaverse shift.
2️⃣ Jobs that pay — official stats suggest Indian startups added 200K new jobs for the year of 2021, amidst what has been a record year that saw $35 billion+ in venture capital invested here, generating 42+ unicorns. Not to mention some outstanding exit events on the street. Current job stat is a 4-year record, with startups directly adding ~6 lakh jobs in the past 5 years.
Grocery IPO incoming 🛒
Not-10 minute delivery, just old school rolling through the aisles. More Retail, which runs a widely popular supermarket chain in India, is cooking plans of raising $500 million from public markets early next year — at a ~$5 billion valuation.
Originally called Trinethra Super Retail, the chain was acquired by the Birlas in 2007, who rebranded it to More, scaled it up to be the fourth largest supermarket chain in India, and then 2019, sold it off to a holding company backed by Amazon and Samara Capital.
Amazon was basically looking to hedge its bets in emerging categories and hyperlocal commerce. Business wise, More operates some 750 locations, big and small, making close to ₹5,000 crores in revenues.
Bottomline — strong brand, experienced management, and a presence beyond core urban centers are some plus points investors cheer.
Besides, with majority of India’s consumer class yet to move from neighborhood bazaars to the AC furnished storefronts, the runway looks long.
Some big balls raises incoming 💰
Healthcare SaaS player Innovaccer, which had become a unicorn this year, closed another $150 million round from biggies like Mubadala Cap, Microsoft, Tiger Global — doubling valuation to $3.2 billion.
The company sells an extensive SaaS platform to hospitals, insurance companies and healthcare enterprises, that helps collect, organize, manage data generated in the dealing with patients, which is then used to generate better insights to improve care delivery.
There’s a hodgepodge of other products too — including app-marketplaces, virtual consultations software, compliance tools, and such.
Most of the tech is sold in the US, with the business making over $100 million in revenues. Steal at $3.2B! 👏
Then, onto a mega Series A round 💸
Credit-card venture Uni Cards, founded by ex-Pay U exec Nitin Gupta, raised a big-ass $70 million Series A round — one of the largest ever, from General Catalyst, at a $350 million valuation.
Uni’s first product is a card that lets users split bills in 3 no-cost installments, currently processing about $23 million/month in transaction volumes. More neobanking and basic financial products are in the pipeline.
Quick look at India’s ~$10B Semiconductor bet 💪
What happened — GOI passed a ₹76,000 crore worth Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) for semiconductor manufacturers — expanding its agenda of cutting reliance on imports.
PLI basically offers performance-based incentives — you invest or produce stuff worth X, and I give you Y in tax benefits. India’s previous attempts with automotive, smartphones have been straight home runs!
Some of the most potent items in this bill include audacious provisions like upto 50% capital support in build out of semiconductor fab facilities, or even semi design firms that can set up shop to pioneer R&D. Here’s a complete list.
Nearly ₹1.7 lakh crore worth of investment is expected to roll in — with companies from Qualcomm to MediaTek or Samsung lining up bids.
Closing Out — Leena Nair makes history 🙌
French luxury-label Chanel appointed British-Indian executive Leena Nair as its newest global CEO — adding to a series of appointments of India-bred execs running top global corporations.
Leena, born in Kolhapur, educated locally and then at XLRI (MBA in HR), spent 30+ years cutting her teeth at Unilever — entering as a trainee and rising up to several key executive leadership roles.
She’d be the first person outside the Wertheimer and Chanel family to the run to $10 billion empire, and the only Indian woman at the helm of a major fashion house after Sonia Syngal at Gap. 👏
What next — rising competition from rivals like Louis Vuitton, Hermes, a shift to ecommerce, global fraud, and need for expansion are some key problems setting the agenda.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
🛵 Delivering now - Ola is kicking off bike deliveries. Special events in Bangalore and Chennai were organized to deliver bikes to first 100 customers.
💉 Get jabbed, or GTFO - Google is asking employees to get jabbed by January, otherwise face a pay cut, or even get fired.
🍎 $3 trillion club - Apple about to make history as the first corporation to be worth $3 trillion. Smart cars and AR glasses rumors are helping. Time for Timmy to retire?
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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