Happy Monday folks 👋 — 10 days into October already.
Earnings for the July-to-September quarter will start flowing in. Eyes are also set on early signs of how holiday spending shapes up! Let’s dive in...
What’s brewing hot ☕
IPO fest getting noticed — Indian companies accounted for 3% of all of the global money raised in IPOs for the 9 months from January to September this year, putting us on the 11th spot globally. Of the $330B raised across the world from public markets, India pulled in about $9.7 billion, across 72 deals. Nearly 30 major bids are yet to go live by the end of this year, so top-10 looks reachable!
No imports, build here instead — while speaking during an event, the Indian government reaffirmed its support to Tesla’s entry into India, but asked Elon to not import stuff from China — but rather consider making all cars it will sell in India, within India. Tesla meanwhile is hung up on special duties. Currently, India charges additional 100% in duties on imported cars above $40K in value, and 60% on cars below that. Tesla is demanding the rate to be reduced below 40% so it can test the market first. Tough sell.
Reliance acquires REC Solar 🤝
What happened — Reliance spent $771 million to acquire European solar-cell and component manufacturer, REC Solar — to kick start Reliance’s newly formed green energy business.
REC was actually previously owned by a Chinese-energy company called China National Bluestar. FYI, China owns a dominant position in the world’s solar panel manufacturing, in addition to near monopoly on key components and chemicals. This makes sourcing difficult, and India had been trying to gain better grip on the supply chain for long.
Anyway, the deal adds about 1.8GW of solar production capacity to Reliance’s arsenal, and gives Reliance an attractive roster of patents — a formidable position to kick off the company’s ambitions.
What matters — Reliance has set up has an audacious target of hitting 100GW in clean energy production capacity by 2030, almost 22% of all the target set by India.
Oh we ain’t done, 🧐
Reliance also acquired a 15.5% stake in Sterling & Wilson Solar, a company that provides services of design, planning, construction, maintenance of mega solar farms.
Notion raised at a monster valuation 🤯
16 months after raising at a $2B valuation, Notion raised $275 million more at an eye-popping $10 billion valuation from Coatue, Sequoia, and Base10 Partners!
Growth has been gangbusters on the back of the pandemic — with 500% expansion in user base, a 350% revenue growth for its productivity platform, and an estimated ARR of $70 million+! Not bad for a company that blew itself up, lost all money, and then rediscovered it all.
Then looking at fintech real quick, 💳
Productfy, a global banking as a service platform, raised $16 million in a Series A round led by CM Ventures along with a couple other notable investors pitching in.
Productfy allows brands to integrate basic banking and fintech products into their digital applications, kinda like Shopify but for embedded finance — a theme-play that’s been super-hot in fintech for a while!
TCS shows the IT market is recovering well 📈
Strong revenue and profit growth for the last 3 months from the King of IT services helped Dalal Street ease into a nice weekend.
Quick look at the numbers:
Revenues grew 17% YoY to ₹47K crores
Profits of ₹9.6K crores, jumped 14.1% YoY
Margins took a tiny hit, with return to office and other back to business changes enforced
Brokers were expecting slightly more in profits and revenue though — which led to mixed commentary that a short term correction in the stock price is overdue. Long-term players couldn’t care a damn — gaining confidence from management’s comments that a healthy demand pipeline is forming.
Bottomline — the global IT market is expected to grow 9% in 2021, with cloud-based technologies growing even faster, which reads extremely well for the entire sector.
Closing out — doubling down on Plant-based meat 🌿
Nestle’s global operation, nervous about losing out on millennial and GenZ tastes, made a decisive bet in alternative meat — launching a vegan egg brand called veEGGIE and a vegan-shrimp brand called Vrimp. Naming did draw some mixed reactions.
Right now, alt-meat forms barely 0.25% of Nestle’s revenue base, but ignoring the growing industry could be catastrophic — which, despite apparent disgust from real-meaters, is expected to grow into a $16B+ industry by 2025!
Last thing global FMCG companies want is to be found sleeping on major trends.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
👏 Good deeds - El Salvador, which adopted BTC as legal tender, will invest some of the gains to build a veterinary hospital. Cool!
🔐 Dhandha band - Dream 11 stopped its operations in Karnataka to comply with the real-money gaming ban. Unicorn with no horn?
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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MotaBhai thinks ahead the time. In Corona Pandemic period when every pocket has big hole but he was only who had pocket with full of money to pay off its almost all debts and Reliance became debt free in pandemic. What a master stroke! Now he is divesting its petroleum & refinery assets and investing heavily in business of future like digital (JIO) and green energy. This new energy business based on the principle of carbon recycling and circular economy and it is estimated to a multi-trillion opportunity for India and the world.