Polygon goes shopping 👛
Hacks wont stop, VI bleeds, and GOI's push.
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Market summary: 📊
Good start to the week in India with a couple hot IPO listings helping sustain optimism. US finished up after Biden gave a speech on the Afghan mess, but tech was out of favor.
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.26%
Nasdaq - up 0.027%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.21%
Sensex - up 0.26%
What’s popping? ☕
✅ Year of hacks — western telco giant T-Mobile is apparently hit with a brutal hack that leaked data of nearly 100M+ of its US users, including social security numbers, phone numbers, driver license info, which is apparently not being sold on a forum for $270K in Bitcoin. T-Mobile is investigating the news, and the company’s stock was hit 3% in today's trading. Could be as bad as the Equifax fiasco.
✅ New highs — we’re quickly moving past crypto’s 4-5 month long slumber, with total cryptocurrency market cap again crossing $2 trillion, despite blatant hacks and increased taxes ruling headlines. $BTC is close to breaking into $50K once again. Meanwhile, in the old school world Devyani International had a cracker of an open, with stock popping nearly 56% at open, closing at over ₹140. IPO was oversubscribed by over 100x, so expect that upward rally to hold for a while as folks jump in for a piece.
Polygon made a bold acquisition 💪
What happened — home-grown crypto startup Polygon Network acquired another blockchain venture called Hermez, which is building a zero-knowledge crypto scaling solution, in a $250 million deal.
Some context — popular Blockchains like Ethereum slow down when they have to process heaps of transactions at the same time, which limits utility and scalability. So platforms like Polygon or Hermez or a million others with their own respective tech, build “infra” on top of Ethereum to make things fast, as well as cheaper. Some of these projects look incredibly promising.
Anyway, Hermez is built on a Zero-Knowledge foundation, which means it is basically capable of verifying transactions, personal info and other data, without “exposing” or sharing any information on its network with 3rd party services it interacts with.
What next — Polygon will integrate Hermez into their network, exchange the HEZ token out with Matic, and will leverage Hermez’ tech to roll out its own zero-knowledge scaling solution.
Bottomline — Polygon started 3 years ago, stands in the top 20 currencies worldwide, and is nailing $250M+ acquisition. Hate on crypto all you want, but...
VI’s painful march to the cemetery ⚰️
Vodafone’s condition ain’t good — although losses narrowed from a year ago, the second wave ate into revenues last quarter, while subscribers were stolen by the merciless assault of its competition.
Quick look at the limping giant’s quarter:
Revenues came down 14% YoY to ₹9,152 crores
Lost ₹7,392 crores, down 71% YoY
Margins shrunk down to 40.5%, from ~46%
Meanwhile, average revenue per user came down ₹3 rupees to ₹107, thanks to free recharges offered during lockdowns to keep customers activated.
Debt of ₹1.9 lakh crores, up 65% YoY and spectrum dues payable to the government continues to give bankers and lenders sleepless nights.
What matters — GOI promises an intervention via rescue package, but that’s gotta happen fast. Delays could sap morale of management, or push the business in a deeper rut, making things even harder to change.
Promising day in Venture Town 💰
Bike taxi startup Rapido closed a sizable $52 million Series C round from Shell Ventures, Yamaha, Kunal Shah and a few others.
For those under a rock, Rapido offers 2 and 3 wheeler ride-hailing services as well as quick hyperlocal delivery services in 100+ cities across the nation, with 1.5 million drivers, serving 15 million+ customers.
Now COVID obviously threw a gut punch, but demand apparently is crawling back to ~80% levels, and fresh funds will be deployed to accelerate ops, hiring, tech, and build a ramp to a 50M base.
Meanwhile, a quick look at major Neo-banking raises ☝️
Brazilian neobank, NuBank, the most highly valued neo-banking project around the world, will go public in the next 3 months, raising $2 billion from the markets at a $40 billion valuation! That tops market caps of Deutsche Bank, Axis Bank, Mizuho, or Bank of China. Tides are changing!
Meanwhile, the No.1 neo-bank in the US, Chime, rode the sentiment to pull in $750 million at a $25 billion valuation. Used by about ~13M users, the company has had plenty of success in attracting a low and middle income base, one that is the worst affected by predatory fees of traditional banks. IPO comin’ soon.
Closing out — $1.3 trillion promise 🙌
The Promise — PMO came guns blazing at the Independence Day speech, announcing a $1.35 trillion comprehensive infrastructure upgrade program, to get India out of COVID’s rut and capitalize on shifting geo-political winds in Asia.
Some color — exact deets weren’t revealed, but doubling down on electronics manufacturing, ground transportation infra, pharma, EV production and clean energy, and other capital-intensive industries seems priority — making India a world class manufacturing hub in the process.
Key takeaway — taking India out of a 7.3% GDP decline year will take more than hot-air filled promises, but global reluctance of doing business with China, success of recent PLI-schemes, booming tech scene, etc. create the most fertile backdrop we could’ve ever imagined.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
👍 Give up some more - SEBI okayed Patanjali-owned Ruchi Soya to go ahead with an additional ₹4,300 crores stock listing on the exchange.
💰 Highest in the room - McLaren F1 took home the title as the most expensive car ever to be auctioned, with a price tag of $20.5 million.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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