Bullets

Sequoia and Tiger Global backed Fintech startup Jupiter has acquired a Non-Banking Financial Corporation license from RBI. Jitendra Gupta, the founder of Amica Financial Technologies Ltd.,(Jupiter's parent company) has informed various sources that a new CEO will be appointed for the NBFC vertical.

The NBFC license will allow Jupiter to lend money out of its resources, which in turn will allow it to possibly generate revenues to support its operations.

I guess NeoBanks are not forgotten after all!

With a market share of 97%, Google Play Store has been dominating the app store market for a while. Now PhonePe wishes to bring out an alternative app store which is more localised in both the language as well as consumer's perspective.

With its 450 million registered users, PhonePe believes it has a big chance of stealing Google’s market share in this department. 

First, targeting Amazon and now Google, is PhonePe shooting for the stars or punching above its weight?

Adani Group is on a repayment spree since the Hindenburg Report caused the group enterprise to crash and burn, losing around $100 billion in market value and causing credit agencies to downgrade the rating on Adani's bonds.

The company reported a strategy to repay a total of $650 million through its cash reserves over quarterly instalments starting with repaying $130 million on July 2024.

Look at Adani repaying debt and improving its credit report! Select would be proud!

Fairfax Group-funded Go Digit is looking to expand into the life insurance segment. Much to the envy of many startups in these trying funding times, Go Digit already has willing investors ready to float their new business!

The banks have agreed to invest a total of ₹69.90 crore in the insurance business' new vertical in two phases of ₹10.93 crore, and the remaining ₹58.97 crore in the second phase for a 9.94% stake through equity share capital.

As part of the latest stock award, Alphabet Inc.’s CEO Sundar Pichai had a pay raise of $226 million. This raise made Sundar one of the world’s highest-paid corporate leaders.

The stock award has a three-year schedule, with Pichai’s pay package being similar in size to 2019.

Although it’s great news for Sundar, it sure must’ve stung those 12,000 employees who were laid off by Google’s parent company earlier this year.

Companies have started presenting their 2023Q4 results and today's star is Reliance.

The Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate has beat estimates and managed to churn out a net profit of ₹19,299 crore this quarter, RIL's highest to date! Revenues have grown, too, reaching ₹2.13 lakh crore. The numbers have grown by 19.1%, and 25.6% year-on-year, while quarter on quarter, the numbers rose by 22.2% and 2.7%, respectively.

One can only imagine how inflated the overvalued stock going to get now...🙄

Mankind Pharma is set to bring out its IPO on April 21. The IPO is meant to raise ₹4,326 crore, making it the biggest IPO this year.🤑 Mankind set the price band at ₹1,026 to ₹1,080 per share.

The entire IPO is an OFS of 40,058,844 equity shares made by the promoters Rajeev Juneja and Sheetal Arora, and Ramesh Juneja, along with other existing investors.

With the captains jumping ship, do you suspect Mankind has "sprung a leak"?🤭

To find a way out of the troubled times, EdTech firm Byju’s is in talks for a $150-$200 million investment from US private equity major Apollo Global Management. Byju’s CEO Raveendran is also discussing the same with Abu Dhabi-based firm 10X AD and Disrupt AD.

The investments might focus on the parent company or Aakash Education Services.

With a liquidity crunch, terrible services, and sucking capital out of investors, Byju’s sure has its hands full in 2023.

The end of April will prove challenging for many as Walt Disney Co. decides to lay off 15% of its workforce, which makes around 7,000 employees.

Staff from both entertainment and corporate division are targeted, saving $5.5 Billion for the company.

With Wall Street’s focus on reducing the high costs of online video platforms, big names like Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. and Paramount Global are laying off their employees as we speak.🌍

As Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran met Apple CEO in Mumbai, reports have surfaced of developments in Tata's businesses to make headway in the iPhone business.

According to reports, Tata Sons is inching closer to acquiring Taiwanese firm Wistron's manufacturing plant near Bengaluru for around ₹5,000 crore. Tata Electronics is also looking to invest around ₹6,300 crore in its plant in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, to manufacture Apple products.

Remember when Vedanta had all the iPhone buzz? Yeah, we don't, either!🤷‍♂️

Infosys shares fell 12% today as the company posted weaker earnings growth in its Q4 results. The IT giant's net profit rose by 8% to ₹6,128 crore, while consolidated revenue rose by 16% y-o-y to ₹37,441 crore. The worst part, Infosys has projected its weakest growth prospects in 6 years at 4-7% for the coming financial year.

While India's aadarsh baalak of IT companies suffers, its bigda baccha ITC broke through its 52-week high in anticipation of upcoming results.

An MoU has been signed between the world’s largest shoemaker Pou Chen and the Tamil Nadu government. Taiwan-based Pou Chen’s subsidiary High Glory Footwear has decided to invest ₹2,302 Crore to set up a manufacturing plant in Ulundurpettai in the Kallakurichi district.

This step would open the gates for the state to become a big centre for non-leather footwear.

With jobs for 20,000 citizens, Tamil Nadu is likely to increase the 25% contribution for footwear production.

New York Times reported on Sunday that smartphone giant Samsung might switch search engine services from Google to Bing. Bing making headway in AI's direction with OpenAI is one of the reasons Google is losing favour as preferred search engine.

The switch could cost Google a whopping $3 billion, which is around 15% of its annual revenue from its deals with Samsung and Apple.

From the least favoured browser to toppling Google's corporate position, oh, how the tables have turned!

Trouble seems to be piling up for the Big Four accounting firm KPMG. After being sued in the SVB collapse, KPMG has been fined $231 million by a Dubai Court.

Breaching auditing standards, KPMG was found guilty of approving financial statements by Abraaj Group, a collapsed private equity firm. This, in turn, caused huge losses for a group of investors. 

False financial statements to allegations of nepotism, what else is KPMG hiding in its closet?

Breaking personal viewership records, Reliance's JioCinema is riding high on the fame wave. The first week of IPL saw JioCinema rack up 5.5 billion unique video views.

This wave might soon crash to the shore, though, as Reliance plans to start charging for its content on JioCinema. The tariffs are reportedly going to be applicable from the same time as the end of IPL.

A free-to-paid transition working for the SIMs does not mean it would work every time!

Due to the revised payment structure, delivery workers in Zomato-owned Blinkit have been on strike. It has resulted in the closing of more than 100 Blinkit stores in Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, and Noida.

The revised structure would reduce workers' pay from Rs 25 per delivery to Rs 15 per delivery.

Looks like the “quick commerce” platform Blinkit can deliver in a blink, but the same courtesy doesn’t extend towards the pleas of its workforce.

Two Indian-origin executives of a US startup, Outcome Health, committed a fraud of over $1 Billion with COO Brad Purdy.

Former CEO & Co-founder Rishi Shah was found guilty on 19 out of 22 counts, whereas former president & co-founder Shradha Agarwal was convicted on 13 of 15 counts. Selling false advertising inventory led to the executives being charged with wire, mail, and bank fraud.

Deceiving investors & lenders might result in imprisonment of 30 years for these executives.

Meet Bedrock, Amazon's latest addition to the global AI race. With Bedrock, Amazon has taken a collaborative approach by not building the AI model themselves.

AI startups like AI21 Labs, Anthropic and Stability AI will be working on the AWS platform to provide pre-trained AI models that people can use to create AI-powered apps.

Amazon has not declared a pricing model for the platform, but judging from the customizability of the whole deal, the bill might be a long one.

To initiate a low-cost passive mutual fund business, India’s biggest stock brokerage firm Zerodha announces a joint venture with Smallcase. Zerodha’s CEO, Nithin Kamath, announced the news via a pleasing tweet.

Zerodha already received a thumbs up from SEBI (Securities and Exchange of India), in principle, to go ahead with its mutual fund application in 2021.

Too bad things didn’t turn out well for the prior acquisition plans between Smallcase and fintech Cred.

Japanese Tech investment group Softbank has decided to sell its holdings worth $7 billion in Jack Ma's Alibaba group through prepaid forward contracts that will give Softbank the option to buy these shares back.

The sale comes as a result of Softbank trying to "prioritize financial discipline" before it "goes on the offensive with investments", according to a report by Business Standard. Alibaba shares fell by 5.2%, eroding about $13 billion in market value.