Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
Filter Coffee hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump start your day.
Sign up below for free. 👇
Let’s go ahead and get started:
Market summary: 📊
US:
S&P 500 - up 1.54%
Nasdaq 100 - up 1.04%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.56%
Sensex - up 0.48%
What them gamers gon do now? 🎮
As India-China border tensions flare up, the Government rushed out the door banning nearly 118 Chinese apps from Indian app stores. Among the digital casualties is multiplayer game PUBG — notorious for its popularity among India’s youth. If you’re one of those millions who lost their only medium of sanity through these lockdowns, we’re sorry.
Anyway, other notable apps on the banned list include Alibaba’s payment app Alipay, WeChat Work and WeChat reading. Going full Scarface, the government called these apps “prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity, defence, security of state and public order of India”. Here’s a list of all the services made ‘kaput’.
While these claims may be debatable, it truly makes little sense to continue to allow Chinese companies to mine data and profit off of India’s burgeoning internet base, as nefarious incursions at the border keep rising. Regardless, India’s thriving local consumer tech ecosystem is the prime beneficiary of this move, so let’s go build fellas!
Raise on a high 🍎
Capitalizing on its recent market rally, Tesla will sell shares worth $5 billion to raise some easy cash for the company. Stock tanked 4% on the news, but quickly resumed its journey upwards.
What’s the cash being put for? Nobody knows. Management hasn’t outlined what it will do with the capital but considering insatiable demand in the market for the company’s electric vehicles, further product line expansion, factory construction, R&D could be on the table. Also, reduction of debt to strengthen balance sheets won’t be ruled out.
Tesla and Apple’s stocks recently underwent a split — bringing their per-share prices down by a considerable factor, which makes ownership much simpler for people who otherwise cannot afford a single $500 or $2000 share. Not that we can buy 🙄
Regardless, given the stock’s rally, expectations are very very steep right now. And even the slightest mistake could cost the company a fortune. Read more.
Tale of two realities… 📊
On one hand, India’s GDP has contracted nearly 25%, while on the other hand, Indian startups are raising cash by the boatloads. It appears like the divide between winners (digital natives) and losers (traditional enterprise) is widening by the day.
Let’s do a quick run through of the latest:
First up, Masa is busy raising $150 million for his Indian poster child Unacademy, boosting the startup's valuation to $1.45 billion. Existing investors Facebook, Sequoia and others are expected to pile on. The company, one of the prime beneficiaries of India’s ed-tech boom, has about 30 million users on its platform, 350K of which are paying subscribers. Growth is blowing through the roof.
Next up we have music streamer Gaana, who has raised ₹375 crore in debt round from existing buyers Tencent and Occasions Web, despite Chinese tech claiming that their interest in India is waning. Tencent had earlier led a $115 million funding in Gaana a couple years ago.
Anyhoo, Gaana has recently debuted a short video platform Hotshots, with a social commerce twist to it, and the funds will be used to drive expansion there as well.
Then in logistics, 📦
Hyperlocal delivery service Dunzo scooped up $28 million as part of its Series E, with Google and other notable investors like Lightbox and Bhoruka Finance Corp, US firms 3L Capital and Moving Capital, and Singapore-based family office Pivot Ventures buying a piece each. Dunzo’s last-mile logistics services have been essential to help the ecommerce platforms as well as SMEs serve its newfound demand.
There has to be some guy with AI... 🔍
Entropik Tech, an artificial intelligence-powered emotional intelligence platform, has raised $8 million as part of its Series A funding, in a round led by Alpha Wave Incubation.
The company apparently trains models on consumer data assets provided by clients to help brands measure the cognitive and emotional responses of consumers to their content and product experiences. Funds will be put to further scale international growth and ramp up its deep-tech capabilities.
Finally, among the enablers, venture fund 3one4 Capital, which focuses on early stage investing has launched efforts for its third fund, this time aiming for a $100 million. Management says the fund has already received commitments for 40% of the target from new and existing investors. We’re barely surprised.
Post raise 3one4 Capital’s AUM will swell up to $210 million. Their history is quite attractive too, having backed over 50 startups including Mitron, Licious, Open, LoanTap, Uable, Betterplace, DarwinBox, Faircent, Bugworks, Pocket Aces, YourStory and Tracxn.
While we’re on the subject, let’s turn heads to a splashy US based raise - 💰
Looking to connect people in the post-pandemic world, and capitalizing on the void for meaningful professional connections left by LinkedIn, a startup called Lunchclub.ai has raised over $24.2 million at a $100 million valuation from Coatue and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The barely 20-something employee company essentially connects you with professionals for a lunch meeting in person, but recently pivoted to a virtual setup, and has seen growth explode since. Sounds like the introvert’s fantasy.
Scared much bruh? 👀
Apple’s App Store has been dragged into a public debate on whether or not big tech hurts smaller enterprises. Netflix, Epic, Amazon, Spotify, Microsoft, Basecamp, Wordpress, Nvidia, Facebook, Google - all have ongoing conflicts with Apple in addition to thousands of smaller developers. Pressure is mounting by the day.
So the company went into some damage control mode and published “statistics” on how much economic impact the App Store has helped create. Signalling is sooooo much not like Apple, and perhaps shows a rare peek into the company’s defensive play moving ahead.
Anyway, per Apple, the App Store alone supports 2.1 million jobs (devs, engineers, other staff) all over the US, and added about 15% of those within the last 18 months alone.
Will that be enough to appease regulators? You wish. But but… Tim Cook is a master operator and lobbyist, with close ties to Trump and Washington politicians, so it may not be easy for the US to slap its largest tech company at a time when they’re busy taking on Chinese tech.
However, the marketplace is increasingly losing patience for Apple and that’s most likely where the jury will be held.
Amazon’s fintech push 🛒
India is getting a taste of the famed Amazon-insatiable-DNA as the company keeps foraging for more in the woods. Its latest bout — sell Gold and Insurance on the ecommerce platform. SMH.
Pushing deeper into the fintech space, and appealing to a wider base of users, the company hopes it can combine these essential products/services along with Amazon Pay to build a robust end-to-end payments and fintech business. We did a quick search and listing for gold bars popped up, delivered for you via the prime program. Nothing about insurance is listed yet, but management says auto insurance will be the first product.
Well, exciting stuff - but it sucks to see a select few deep-pocketed ecommerce companies, leveraging scale, regulatory understanding, and limitless resources, to mount a fight on what has always been the turf of SMEs in India.
Bottomline: India is a massive consumer of gold. In 2019, we bought about 690 tonnes of the metal. Even by capturing miniscule market share, ecommerce platforms could build sizable franchises here, but it will all come at the cost of SMEs and unorganized sellers, who hold the majority of the pie and could really use some good years coming out of the lockdown. Read more.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🤑 Celebrities keep investing -Michael Jordan hopes he can emulate the success he had selling shoes for Nike, this time however for a consumer tech platform. The sports legend will take a board position in DraftKings, a popular fantasy sports league and betting platform in the US. Jordan will be compensated with an equity stake and says he’ll be critical in offering the company “strategic” advice.
👏 YC to do rounds of IITs - YC just announced its first digital IIT tour, whereby it’s going to host a collection of on-line talks at six campuses in September and October. Events begin with IIT Roorkee on September 4. YC partners will talk about myths, challenges, ideas and pitfalls around starting startups.
🤝 HP joins venture train - launching a mini acceleration program, in partnership with angel investing platform LetsVenture, HP hopes it can cut the time to market for enterprise startups in India. HP will work with a selected bunch of 8 enterprise-focused, growth-stage startups along three tracks - technology, go-to-market, and investment to offer all help it can. Applications are now open and with 18 Sep the last date to apply.
💑 Bumble’s IPO - Dating app Bumble is preparing to file for an IPO at a valuation of $6 to $8 billion by as early as next year as the tech companies are looking to ride out the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
🏏 Won’t stop, can’t stop - Kunal Shah’s CRED becomes the latest digital winner to join the likes of Dream11, Unacademy and Paytm to be the sponsors for the IPL 2020. India’s new are replacing the old guard faster than ever before.
🖥️ Hiring spree - Infosys is planning to hire 12,000 American workers in the next 2 years to bring its hiring commitment in the country to 25,000 over 5 years. As the US cracks down on immigration for skilled workers, the IT company is doing everything it can to appease the government.
✋ No Tinda for Pak - after accusing Tinder and Grindr for not adhering to local laws, Pakistan has now blocked the two dating apps in its latest move to curb immoral content from online platforms. “Immoral”. Wow.
😷 Man down - Chief Minister of Goa, Dr. Pramod Sawant, has tested positive for coronavirus. Not having any symptoms as of now, he will be isolating at home. Goa on Tuesday recorded its highest single-day spike with 588 people testing positive for coronavirus, taking the state's COVID-19 count to 18,006, while two deaths took the toll to 194.
Hey👋 , you think any of your friends would enjoy Filter Coffee like you? Connect us!
You can just forward this email or share FC on social media by clicking the button below. Thanks and Ciao! 😀