Unicorn 10 has landed 🦄
Porsche going public, venture deals, and sanctions are here.
Market summary: 📊
India pulled down another notch as global economy realigns to brace for Russia’s aggression. US finished the day in the red too.
US:
S&P 500 - down 1.01%
Nasdaq - down 0.99%
India:
Nifty 50 - down 0.67%
Sensex - down 0.66%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
🙄 Come on Brian — the CEO of Coinbase stirred up controversy by calling “ad agencies” wasteful after his bare-minimum QR-code showing Super Bowl ad turned out to be such a huge hit. Fyi, brands usually spend tens of millions to nail these ad sets that end up running barely a few seconds. Brian, however, missed a key detail. Turns out Coinbase’s ad was in fact pitched to them by an agency itself, and one of the employee straight up called out the CEO’s rant on Twitter. Shabby look!
🕶️ Getting there — true Metaverse may be a decade away, but early adopters are showing significant interest, which could force companies to keep investing vigorously. After close to 10 million VR headsets sold in 2021, analysts are predicting another 14 million sales in 2022. Oculus, which sold about 8 million units last year, is leading, followed by Microsoft’s Hololens (yup, still existing). FWIW, for the first 2 years after iPhones launched, Apple had sold 13 odd million devices in total. Very well could be an inflection point for immersive tech!
Porsche is speeding to an IPO 🚗
What’s poppin’ — Volkswagen is planning a public listing of the crown jewel in its portfolio, sports car maker Porsche, at a $96 billion valuation — as it struggles to find cash for its ongoing electric-vehicle shift.
VW, the extensive German car maker owns a stable of iconic brands like Lamborghini, Audi, Bentley, and Bugatti, and had purchased Porsche back in 2009.
Funfact: both firms share a complex history actually. In mid-2005, the boys running Porsche, riding high on success, began buying VW stock in the open market, looking to acquire and own the company. But unfortunately, Porsche ran out of money trying to do so, eventually ending up being absorbed by VW itself.
Anyway, like everybody else making crazy commitments in the industry, VW promised to spend over $100 billion to become an EV company over the next 5 years, getting 50% of its global car output electrified by 2030.
Obviously, that’s a HUGE complex task for a legacy car maker spread across 7 continents. Meanwhile, rising competition from giants like Tesla, as well as burdens from the recent emissions scandal, is running cash coffers dry. And hence… offloading a large stake in Porsche could help!
Anyway, Porsche sells about ~250K luxury cars a year, making almost $33 billion in revenues each year, with about $5 billion operating profits.
Bottomline — VW stock popped over 10% post the announcement, signaling a broad investor approval.
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Unicorn count hits 10 🦄
What happened — enterprise software startup Hasura, which builds tools to make data management easier for developers, raised $100 million last night from Nexus, LightSpeed, and Vertex at a billion dollar valuation!
Hasura basically sells an open source solution that connects with a wide range of databases and allows all the data to be accessed through one simple unified API, making it dead easy for devs to write nimble web apps.
Stats are limited, but revenues could probably be in the $25-$30 million range. Their tool has been downloaded over 400 million times!
And then turning over to health tech for a bit, ☝️
MediBuddy closed a $125 million Series C from Quadria Capital, Lightrock India and a bunch of others.
The company basically building ZocDoc for India — allowing people to book doctor appointments, dental checks, lab tests online. MediBuddy also delivers medicines, sells insurance, and offers corporate healthcare packages. 30 million+ users nationwide have utilized their services, which have been quite popular amidst COVID.
Quick look at a fintech acquisition 💸
What’s poppin’ — SoFi, one of the major fintechs in the West that’s out to become a bank, purchased a banking software maker called Technisys, in a $1.1 billion deal!
SoFi is like a neobank, trading app, wealth manager, and a lending platform all packed into one — popular among millennials mostly in the US. They have about 3 million users, and went public last year via a SPAC merger.
The company they bought, Technisys, basically provides software that links up with core banking infra of legacy banks, and allows these banks to kick off digital products. They also help neo-banks launch products with partner banks, acting as the glue between the two.
Anyway, SoFi, having acquired a banking license, is on its way to become a full-fledged bank, and Technisys gives them important pieces of technology to become one — allowing seamless connectivity with the rest of the American financial system.
Closing out — Sanctions are here, but Putin no scared 🤷♀️
After warning Putin that he’ll impose the “mother of all sanctions” to punish Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Biden finally pulled the trigger on some economic blocks.
Couple major Russian banks as well as billionaire-Oligarchs have been halted from doing business with the US and Europe. Russia also won’t be allowed to trade its debt in the European market.
Meanwhile, Germany, which was a bit queasy to join the conflict given its reliance on Russian energy, jumped onboard too — halting certification of its $11 billion, 730-mile long natural gas pipeline, project Nord Storm 2.
Putin obviously knows what's coming though — and had been prepping for the eventuality financially, hoarding reserves in his bank, building his own payments messaging system, and even supporting Blockchains recently.
But… global economic disruption is extremely likely. The Nasdaq and S&P are taking dumps on the street. Russia’s own major stock index was down 10% on Monday. Back home, India has so far been quiet politically, but the FM made her concerns clear on rising oil prices. Gameplay? Not act like a global freaking economic expert and keep adding to those SIPs, we guess.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
🔌 EV Plans - Hero is joining hands with BPCL to set up charging infrastructure for EV two-wheelers across the country.
🗣️ Airlines prepping - Vistara will increase its total staff strength to 5,000 by the end of this year as travel rebounds back.
🛒 GOI goes snooping- the Yogi mess at the National Stock Exchange has riled up GOI against regulators. The finance ministry is apparently closely watching SEBI’s handling of the situation.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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