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Market summary: 📊
Indian markets ended flat on Monday, as investors await major earnings to roll in. US kicked off the week on a positive note.
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.35%
Nasdaq - up 0.35%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.02%
Sensex - down 0.03%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
✅ Theaters disrupted? Nah — Black Widow topped $80 million in box office sales for its opening weekend in North America — breathing some hope into the battered movie industry, which has been gasping for breath at the mercy of streaming overlords ever since COVID took control. Debatable if multiplex footfall will ever rise back to pre-COVID levels, but for now, “leading” franchises seem to be successful in pulling people in.
✅ Promoter, or no promoter — PayTM’s board has approved its ₹12,000 crore IPO plans, paving way for another growth-tech firm to be listed locally. SEBI docs will be submitted soon. Meanwhile, CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma will be declassified as a “promoter” of the company, because he owns just 14% of the empire, while the requirement to be one is 20%. Doesn’t matter who calls the shots.
Who asked for an Airline? ✈️
What’s poppin’— ET reports that a new low-cost nationwide airline is in the making, kicked off by a bunch of ex-aviation sector executives, backed by dollars from billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjunwala.
Details remain scant, but Jhunjhuwala plans on owning about 40% of the business, with a ~$35 million seed capital infused to get the party started. The airliner is called “Akasa”.
Capitalizing on big waves — the list of aviation ventures with the “low-cost” value-proposition, previously burnt to the ground, runs long. But two key factors make this time unique:
Post COVID revenge travel — longer it takes for India to beat all waves, longer and brighter the revenge travel season will look
Broad expansion of India’s middle class — whose penchant for travel and “quasi luxury” experiences should not be underestimated
Big picture — with Jet Airways scheduled to take off soon, the last thing India’s heavily regulated, discounted, and cut throat competitive commercial aviation sector needs is more competition. Tough game, but exciting to watch unfold.
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Daily soap episode from Muskland 📺
Elon Musk will be seen at a rare court trial where a bunch of high-profile Tesla shareholders are suing his ass — for allegedly acquiring SolarCity for $2.6 billion in 2016, only because the company had to be saved from bankruptcy, enriching the Musk family, despite no direct value added to Tesla.
Counter punch — while the media spins the fiasco as ”poor Musk” having to show up in court, bearing with the law of the peasants, Elon might actually be trying to have his moment. Turns out while all other board members included in the suit settled for $60 million last year, Musk was the only one who decided to contest.
If the court rules against him, Musk could be on the hook for $2 billion out of his own pocket. If not, man gets lauded for standing up to “evil” shareholders. Either way, headlines guaranteed!
Mondays are great days in Startup land 🔥
Venture fundraising spree resumed in full force yesterday… Quick rundown of the major bids:
Startup land OG Flipkart pulled some more in — raising $3.6 billion from late-stage investors GIC, Softbank, Walmart, and even Tiger Global, at a $37.6 billion valuation. Softbank is returning to the cap table after a 3 year break, lured in by promises of a looming IPO.
Meanwhile, Bikry, an online business building app, raised $1.3 million from YCombinator, and founders of Razorpay and Angelist. The 2-year old venture joins countless others helping Indian merchants digitize, set up stores, and sell online. With 500K+ product listings and 50K+ merchants onboarded, start looks solid.
Powerplay, kinda like the Slack for construction projects, raised $5.2 million from Accel Partners, Sequoia, SnapDeal and India Quotient. The platform offers a centralized activity management platform for project managers, builders and contractors to discuss and plan out projects and improve productivity.
Lastly, Ola’s Electric division got a 10 year, $100 million debt facility from Bank of Baroda, to keep funding that audacious factory capable of churning 10M+ electric bikes a year. Gotta admire BoB’s willingness to go out on a limb and understand the vision, quite unusual for old school players!
Bottomline: ventures of all shapes, sizes, stages, levels keep seeing unfettered enthusiasm. Never been a better time to hit buildin’.
Closing out — $350 billion dreams 💰
TikTok daddy Bytedance, which was eyeing a $350-$400 billion valuation likely coming out with one of the biggest IPOs ever — is being forced to shelve its plans.
Becoming the latest victim of China’s heavy hand, regulators asked the company to undergo a forced “cybersecurity” audit, to ensure no data on Chinese citizens in any fashion is being shared with foreign entities.
Bottomline — a year ago, it was Trump cock-blocking the company. Now, it's their own. What was supposed to be a major liquidation event from Sequoia, Softbank, General Atlantic, continues to be a prolonged nightmare.
Hard to imagine public investors would be too pumped to hold the bag.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🤵 Solidifying the bench - Swiggy promoted its VP of strategy and investments, Phani Kishan, to the role of a cofounder, trying to snatch some headlines from rival Zomato for a bit.
💰 Trade looking solid - Suez Canal earned nearly $6 billion in tax revenue, the highest ever revenue in its history despite COVID and a six-day ship blockage. Thanks to your 1-click orders and revenge shopping sprees.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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