Perfumes make billions
China hammers crypto, SPAC no stop, and FDI pawri
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Market summary: 📊
Week opened on a high in India as rapid vaccination breeds optimism. US had an even better day, with mega cap names Microsoft, Google, breaking through all time highs.
US:
S&P 500 - up 1.40%
Nasdaq - up 0.62%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.40%
Sensex - up 0.44%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
✅ Ecommerce draft policy ready — after hammering social platforms, GOI turns its attention to ecommerce. Draft of the new ecommerce policy is ready, and now accepting comments from stakeholders. Restrictions show no mercy — including prohibiting marketplaces from using 3rd seller data to create competitive white label products, as well as demand that ecommerce giants show “origination” of products to help Indian sellers get more visibility. Also, all flash-sales (the prime days and the Diwali dhamakas) will be barred. Margins = dead.
✅ China is hammering crypto mining — after banning crypto mining in the Xinjiang region earlier, China has further extended its bans to multiple other provinces, effectively shutting down nearly 90% of the crypto mining capacity in the greater China region. The move is part of a systemic crusade to thwart any “decentralization” marketed by the western world, and move control in the hands of the regulators, who are aggressively putting forth a digital-Yuan. Meanwhile crypto prices were slammed numb.
Betting on Indian cosmetics 💄
PE giant KKR made waves last night investing $625 million into Indian cosmetics player, Vini Cosmetics, making a bold bet on the rapidly heating Indian cosmetics market.
The deal offers KKR a majority 54% control, while liquidating Vini’s founders, to tell one of the hottest growth stories of the past decade.
Founded by siblings Darshan and Dipam Patel in 2010, Vini markets and sells a select portfolio of cosmetics and toiletries — best known for its brands FOGG (deodorant) and White Tone (facial products). 2019 revenues peaked at ₹1,100 crores, before COVID made a dent (Vini mostly sells through offline vendors), but a forced shift to online helped save the day.
KKR obviously plans on leaning into the expertise of its own diverse portfolio of CPG brands, to push an ecommerce first growth agenda for Vini going forward.
Bottomline — this is THE largest buyout of a CPG company in India by a PE giant, a sign of the market and the segment's maturity.
Big picture — cosmetics is a $15B+ market in India, growing aggressively, with under 10% online penetration. Digital has shattered many barriers and unlocked opportunity, particularly for women customers. All eyes on the Nykaa IPO now!
Quick peek down the fintech lane 👀
Revolut, one of the strongest horses in the global neobank wars, offered rare color into its 2020 performance.
Quick look at the numbers:
Made $361 million in revenues in 2020, up 57% YoY
Of that, $54 million comes from crypto asset appreciation
Lost about $125 million on the year, a buzzkilling 2x jump
15 million retail users, with 0.5 million business banking customers
Given 2020 was a foundational year for digital financial services, markets would’ve loved to see a semblance of profitability, but Revolut attributes most of its losses to a last minute entry into crypto dealing. Here’s a thorough dive from Techcrunch for the fintech nerds.
While we’re on global fintech, ☝️
Wealth management software vendor Addepar, which basically makes software that helps large fund houses, hedge funds, mutual fund issuers, endowments, etc. track, manage, and report performance across their distributed portfolio, raised $150 million from D1 Capital Partners, at a $2 billion+ valuation.
Addepar tracks over $2.5 trillion+ in managed assets through its portals, and remains one of the hottest innovative projects in a rather obscure category worth looking out for.
There goes another one… 🔌
Car-rental platform Zoomcar is apparently looking to do a SPAC deal to go public in the US over the next 12 months.
Founded by 2 Americans, in India, Zoomcar began with $250K in the bank and a fleet of 7 cars back in 2013, and since has expanded to a fleet of nearly 10K+ cars. Management is hoping to top $100 million in revenues this year, with expansions in SouthEast Asia and the MiddleEast on the cards, with India as the homebase.
Key takeaway — after a damning 2020, that even pushed car rental giants like Hertz to go bankrupt, the market is recovering strongly in favor of flexible and online-first alternatives like Zoomcar, Getaround, and Turo as vaccinated consumers slowly start to step out.
Big Picture — after Flipkart, Grey Orange Robotics, and possibly Grofers, Zoomcar is another one of the major growth stories of the past decade to diss Dalal Street and join Wall Street's party instead.
Closing out — big money keeps chasing India 🤔
Global rotation of investor capital to chase post-COVID opportunities has worked well in India’s favor.
For 2020, total Foreign Direct Investment in India spiked to $64 billion, up 27% against 2019, making India the 5th largest global nation for inflows for the year, says a report by the UN (not the Whatsapp one, lol)
FYI, net global capital flows tanked 35%, which makes India’s growth all the more interesting. One of the hottest segments was infrastructure and data services — with $$ chasing investments in data centers, storage facilities, and cloud services. Other hot areas — Healthcare and Production (thanks to GOI’s electronic manufacturing schemes).
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
💉 Vacc attack - China claims to have vaccinated more than a billion people so far. Good luck verifying, and if true, crazy how fast that happened...
🏳️🌈 Olympics for all - New Zealand weightlifter, Laurel Hubbard, will become the first transgender to compete at the Olympics, in the women’s category.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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