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Market summary: 📊
Markets continued the roller coaster ride, gaining some more on Tuesday, as global investors tried hard reading the mood of US voters. Here’s live coverage on the polls.
US:
S&P 500 - up 1.78%
Nasdaq 100 - up 1.76%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 1.24%
Sensex - up 1.27%
First things first ☕
1️⃣ Ant Group’s blockbuster IPO has been halted after Jack Ma and his top lieutenants were summoned by Chinese regulators for a surprise date. The exact details of the suspension are unknown, like everything else with the Chinese, but the New York Times says regulators aren’t satisfied with the details surrounding how Ant would be managing risk in case of a collapse, without hurting the financial system. Sounds like a bunch of BS, but everyone seems too busy with the US elections to care much. We’ll know more.
2️⃣ Govt. of India boosted hopes of the markets with news that the Finance Minister will soon disclose plans for additional stimulus. Although GOI had been prudent with doles until now, with previous stimulus packages mostly revolving around loan-interest forgiveness and infrastructure boosts, people are still widely holding hopes for some cash in the hand. Leading business figures and even the IMF has called for it, but nah we couldn’t count on GOI to bite.
From the Venture oven 💰
The Indian fintech landscape continues to be piping hot. Fedo, an AI startup playing in the insuretech arena became the latest to scoop up $1 million from Unicorn India Ventures. Couple other investors including SEA fund pitched in as well.
Fedo essentially builds models that are used by insurance companies to predict the health risk profile of individuals from a basic facial photo and 5 simple questions. Sounds too good to be true but we guess the use cases are limited to a few conditions that could be a derivative of age. Anyway, insurers then use Fedo signals to help with automating underwriting, making sure they price health-risk appropriately.
Fresh funds will go to streamlining the tech, including onboarding and sign up flows as well as to expand operations in Australia and Southeast Asia this year.
Taking a quick stock of logistics,
Bizlog, a company specializing in reverse logistics (which essentially involves logistics services rendered for returns, re-allocation of merch, processing of discarded materials etc.), has raised a promising ₹12 crore in a pre-series-A round led by Indian Angel Network (IAN).
Major portions of India’s logistics and transportation segment is unorganized, which creates problems particularly at a time when overwhelming demand is coming from digital-first platforms. Bizlog believes the “reverse-logistics” portion of the game alone could be a $13 Billion+ opportunity that’s untapped. So far they’ve expanded to 30 cities and progress looks respectable. We say good luck!
The Food Shifts 🛒
Nestle, the world’s largest food company spent about $1.5 billion last week on acquiring a ready-to-eat food-startup, Freshly, surprising investors and analysts with the move.
Freshly basically sends ready-to-eat, healthy meals on a weekly basis to consumers’ doorsteps, which can be eaten after quickly heating up in a microwave. It's cheaper than ordering from a restaurant, but doesn’t compromise on the “healthy” aspect of eating. In 2020, they will do about $430 million in revenues, sending about 1 million meal packs per week, across the US —so yes, it's a legit opportunity.
Well, it appears that Nestle is betting that the surge we saw in cooking during COVID will eventually wear off, but consumers stuck at home or working remotely will anyway be looking for healthier alternatives. Also, millennials and Gen Z are increasingly used to getting everything delivered at the tap of the button—and Freshly seems like a good marriage of these multiple consumer behaviour needs.
Anyway, although the acquisition doesn’t really have any implications for India directly, it does give some color on what the giants believe will matter in the food industry post COVID—which is often where you can find clues to new companies.
PayPal’s MONSSSSTTEERRRRR quarter! 📈
PayPal yesterday knocked it OUT of the stadium with an outstanding quarterly performance. Payments volume, revenues, P2P transactions—were all up big time for the company, underlining just how fast merchants across the globe are digitizing operations in the middle of this pandemic. Some highlights:
Total transaction on the platform of 4 BILLION! (for just 3 months)
Total payment volume of $247B for the quarter, up 36%
Revenue of $5.5B, up 25%
Venmo (like PayTM for the US) processed $44 Billion, up 61% in the last 3 months!
In all, a complete blowout beat that put PayPal on its way to top $1 trillion in payment volume on an annualized basis!
As lockdowns are easing and merchants across the world are making a hard pivot to suit an offline-online omnichannel business experience, the “enabling” tech platforms are winning big. Investors in all payment processors and enabling apps are cheering!
Social commerce bet 🎮
Flipkart has acquired a gaming company called Mech Mocha, essentially for its intellectual property behind a social gaming platform run by the company called Hello Play. The amount of the transaction is not known but Flipkart had originally invested in the company a while ago.
Mech Mocha has 7+ social games including cricket, carrom and such on Play Store in India, with a specific focus on regional languages, which is its secret sauce. The company was backed by biggies including Accel Partners, Blume Ventures and the founders, without revealing too much, just hinted that the team will now help drive Flipkart’s gaming initiatives.
Bottomline: in the era of attention scarcity, ecommerce platforms are fighting to make relationships with users stickier. What Flipkart could be trying to do here is tap into the network effects of popular games by Mocha and pull engagement onto adjacent products like its digital wallet.
Or they could just put Mech Mocha’s IP to work to gamify and improve the experience of Flipkart Plus, their loyalty membership program. In all honesty, this field is crazy exploding, with lines between gaming, shopping, social media blurring so fast and trying to keep up makes your head spin!
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
😎 Global expansion for India’s bests - Titan has launched its first International Tanishq store in Dubai, inaugurated by the UAE Ambassador to India and Counsel General of India to Dubai with much fanfare. Established Indian companies looking at global expansions, will this be more common here on out?
🛺 Uber limping along in India - Uber has deployed around 100 e-rickshaws across 26 Delhi metro stations to help people with short distance commute. Riders will be able to book e rickshaws on the Uber app. Bro, where is innovation? Look at Ola.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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