Putin goes rogue 🤯
Neo banking raises, Airtel's ad-tech bet, and RBI beating fake lenders.
Market summary: 📊
Horrible freaking day in the Indian markets after Russia moved into Ukraine with all its might. US started off low, but slowly recovered as investors magically woke up to tech’s insulation from all this mess.
US:
S&P 500 - up 1.50%
Nasdaq - up 3.44%
India:
Nifty 50 - down 4.78%
Sensex - down 4.72%
Quick updates to kick it off ☕
💰 Big money funds — well regarded local venture investing house, Prime Venture Partners, raised a $120 million fund last night, as interest to invest in Indian ventures peaks locally as well as globally. Prime had raised its first fund just under a decade ago (a basic $8 million corpus) and has since invested in several hotshots including Hackerearth, Happay, Quiziz, Niyo, MyGate, MFine, and many more.
✋ Regulators aren’t taking it anymore — RBI stepped in and canceled the lending license of a digital-lender called PC financial services last night, on grounds of poor KYC norms and outsourcing of work that violates guidelines. In a Nov 2021 study, RBI had found close to 50% of the apps loaning money on app stores to be outright illegal, screwing up with regulations in one way or another. The recent mess with Dhani has raised heightened attention to this segment.
Russia attacks Ukraine 💣
After weeks of posturing, negotiating and loud mouthed press conferences to make his intentions amply clear, Putin finally pulled the trigger and launched a “special military operation” in Ukraine, rolling tanks and flying jets through the neighboring sovereign nation.
What’s happening on the ground: reports coming out from Ukraine show smaller cities across the country witnessing relentless bombardment. Ukraine’s national capital of Kyiv will be the focus of the attack though, and Russian troops have apparently already taken an airport barely 15 miles out.
Ukraine is claiming military casualties in the hundreds so far, with civilian casualties of around ~150. Citizens are fleeing major urban regions, while President Zelenskiy is calling upon all able men to stay back and take a gun. Total shitshow!
Allies stand united: the US and Europe are responding with stricter economic sanctions. Biden cut off more high-ranking Russian people from doing business in US, and froze assets worth billions owned by Russian banks in the US. UK cut off all Russian banks from its financial system. Everything from technology, to key communications services, from apps to space programs and ISS are on the table.
However, with protests around COVID and other economic issues plaguing western nations (overborrowing, high inflation, rising prices), gathering the political will to enter into a direct conflict could be wishful thinking for all NATO nations.
Economic damage: Europe spiraling back into war is obviously bad for the global economy. Oil prices jumped 7% to top $105 per barrel — highest in 7 years. Sensex shed a massive 2,700 points yesterday to log its second worst fall since March 2020!
FWIW, India imports about 1% of its oil, and 1.5% of its total coal imports from Russia, so we’re not exactly over exposed. But rising oil prices and other commodities could deplete foreign reserves and directly hit the spending power of the local consumer.
Russians meanwhile are already paying a price — with the stock market down 45% yesterday, forcing the exchange to even halt trading. No chance of recovery anytime soon!
Bottomline — military action from NATO, and Putin withdrawing before taking control of Kyiv, both outcomes are equally unlikely. If anything is certain at this point, its that the world order as we know it stands changed forever.
Neobank bag alert 💰
BLR-based fintech player Niyo, who is also one of the top contenders in Indian challenger banking races, wrapped up a $100 million Series C from Accel, Light Rock and a few other investors.
Niyo is building a fee-free, new age banking experience mostly designed around the needs of salaried individuals. Their most basic product right now, a digital savings account, reaches 4M+ users, reporting $3 billion+ in total transaction volume to date. 10K+ users are joining the platform daily! Not bad.
Niyo has also integrated investing features right next to banking, and fresh money will now be put to enable lending and insurance functionalities.
And then turning to some gaming innovation, 🎮
A US-company that sells game-controllers for iPhones, called Backbone, closed a $40 million Series A round from Index Ventures and a couple of Hollywood celebrities.
Backbone makes these controller-accessories that turns any iPhone into a handheld gaming setup — capable of playing remote apps on the Xbox and PlayStation even. Fyi, mobile game spending touched $90B+ last year — better hardware could be game changing.
Airtel made a quick Blockchain bet 🙅♀️
What’s happening — Airtel purchased a strategic stake in a blockchain tech startup, Aqilliz, to boost its digital advertising business.
Aqilliz is designing a decentralized advertising network, where creators can display their stats, and brands can then purchase those eyeballs and run ads. They’re still in the early stages, and apparently an NFT marketplace for musicians called WishWorld is on the cards too.
Anyway, Airtel, if you remember, had made a renewed commitment to kicking off a digital advertising business very recently — combining properties it owns like Wynk, Xstream, etc., in a hope to build an alternative revenue stream to supplement the carrier business. This deal hopefully helps accelerate that outcome.
Closing out — Dorsey takes his revenge 🍻
Good days are back for Jack. The ex-boss of Twitter, who left his seat and returned to run the other company he founded, Square, blasted a hell of a first-quarter as Square’s full-time boss — taking stock up 25% today.
Square, which sells modular POS machines for neighborhood stores, and a P2P payment-app $Cash, grew its business for the December quarter by 30% YoY, making $4.8 billion in revenues.
Total payment volumes grew 45% YoY to $46.3 billion for those 3 months — thanks to holiday shopping and rising footfalls at mom-and-pop stores. Here’s the shareholder letter for some Friday reading.
Why care — $SQ jumping 25% here was probably the first sign of life we’ve seen in growth stocks for a long time. Investors are thankful.🥂
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
✌️ Going easy - Google will no longer require workers be vaccinated to stay employed, easing up some of the guidelines he had issued earlier.
🙁 Layoffs are here - startup bubble is meeting reality. OkCredit had to lay off some 35-40 employees this month, as monetization in the Kirana-tech game continues to remain a bit weak. Sucks!
👎 New wars - in addition to boots on the ground, Russia also launched a full-blown cyber-attack against Ukraine last night, jamming key government systems.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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