Will Uber exit from India? | Roundup #151 | The Startup Operator

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of the Startup Operator Roundup. I am Roshan Karyapa

[00:00:04] and I am Gunjan Saha and together we break down the biggest headlines of India's growing

[00:00:09] startup ecosystem. If this is the first time you are tuning into the channel then please

[00:00:13] consider subscribing for VTALK Startups and if you are returning listener then please

[00:00:18] like share this video and let us know what do you think of the episode in the comments

[00:00:22] below. Let's get started. The past few weeks have been action packed with a lot happening

[00:00:28] in the global startup ecosystem. Well, the most recent one being the announcement of GPT

[00:00:33] 4.0. Now I don't know whether it's an episode out of Black Mirror or not but you can actually

[00:00:38] start having conversations with your mobile phones. Not in the way we are used to

[00:00:43] today at least. Yeah, I mean today Google Assistant just picks up random words and

[00:00:48] starts searching it online but yeah we may be closer to what happens in the movie

[00:00:53] heard. Have you seen that movie? Yeah. Vakyan Phoenix. Phenomenal movie. Scarlett Johansson.

[00:00:58] I mean if GPT 4 talks like Scarlett Johansson, you know a lot more people would be talking

[00:01:03] I think. I guess why you will be using GPT 4.0 that's clear. We won't talk about

[00:01:10] your shit. Yeah, let's keep that aside. Next, Girish Matra Bhutam who is the

[00:01:16] now former CEO of Freshworks. He has stepped down. There's someone else taking

[00:01:21] over his place. We'll try to get to know more about that person and the stellar

[00:01:25] journey which Girish had. We look at why there is no super apps in India

[00:01:31] unlike China where WeChat owns majority of the market. West has tried, India

[00:01:37] has tried but no country has been able to deliver on the success which

[00:01:41] WeChat has. Closer Home, Mindgrove has launched India's first SoC chips

[00:01:46] along with Zoho that is planning to invest around 700 million dollars in

[00:01:50] chip making. Uber's financial results were out recently and India is not on

[00:01:56] the top in terms of contributing to revenue margins. However, India remains

[00:02:00] Uber's largest market. Last week we also saw Porter becoming India's third

[00:02:05] unicorn in 2024 so we try to understand what's happening there as

[00:02:10] well along with regular fundraisers updates from the ecosystem. So let's get

[00:02:14] started but before that I think Roshan you have to address what's

[00:02:24] happening. Yeah I mean we've taken a two-week break. I'll talk about that

[00:02:28] later but I am very excited about the RCB CSK match today right. I mean Dhoni

[00:02:35] and Kohli fans are at it. I see the roads full of jerseys and whatnot. By

[00:02:40] the time of course you guys hear this the results would be out and as

[00:02:43] expected RCB would have disappointed all the fans or not I hope.

[00:02:49] But lately they have been doing so well. Yeah so fingers crossed I mean I

[00:02:55] think that lucky charm seems to be that if I miss the matches I think RCB

[00:02:59] wins. So you don't want to blame Bangalore folks. Yeah sure I mean global warming, RCB's

[00:03:04] performance anything else you know but I won't be watching this match you

[00:03:08] know just yeah just so that there is no bad voodoo shit happening so

[00:03:13] yeah excited for that and yeah phase four phase five of the elections it

[00:03:19] seems numbers have improved turnout numbers and so on right all gearing up

[00:03:24] for June 4th results and whatnot right so yeah hopefully upke bar.

[00:03:32] With 400 bars? Nah I don't know about that but hopefully upke bar. Alright let's talk about some

[00:03:39] global news right Sam Altman took to Twitter and credited the success of

[00:03:44] GPT-4-0 to one person from Pune. He tweets open AI chat GPT-4-0 wouldn't have been

[00:03:50] possible without this Pune man. He credited Pune boy Prafula Dariwal for

[00:03:56] the creation of GPT-4-0 which is a new AI model that has become talk of

[00:04:01] the town since launch. For those who are interested Prafula has scored 330

[00:04:06] out of 360 in the joint entrance exam which is JEE mains and 295 out

[00:04:12] of 300 in physics chemistry mathematics group in class 12. How much did he get in

[00:04:17] his class 7 physics paper or something? Wait no I have more stats okay he

[00:04:23] pursued bachelor's in computer science along with mathematics at MIT

[00:04:27] graduated in 2017 with the perfect GPA of 5 out of 5. Now I don't know

[00:04:33] whether he's single but you know maybe some of our followers can get that

[00:04:37] information for themselves but anyway if you missed out the launch of the

[00:04:40] product here's a quick preview of what GPT-4-0 is. Hey how's it going? Hey there

[00:04:48] it's going great how about you I see you're rocking an open AI hoodie nice

[00:04:53] choice what's up with that ceiling though are you in a cool industry

[00:04:57] style office or something? Well can you take a guess at what I might be

[00:05:00] doing based on what I'm showing you here? Hmm from what I can see it

[00:05:08] looks like you're in some kind of recording or production setup with

[00:05:11] those lights tripods and possibly a mic it seems like you might be gearing up

[00:05:16] to shoot a video or maybe even a live stream. Yeah Roshan you mentioned that

[00:05:21] this is similar to her right and we have been having these doomsday

[00:05:25] conversations where people actually start dating their mobile phones.

[00:05:29] See it's gonna have social consequences for sure right I mean

[00:05:33] today they're so intimately connected with our mobile phones and

[00:05:36] internet so much so that it's such a arduous thing for us to not be plugged

[00:05:42] in all the time you know people are in fact investing in the reverse and

[00:05:47] trying to reduce screen time and whatnot. I saw just a couple of use

[00:05:52] cases you know one of them real-time translation which is fantastic right I

[00:05:56] mean Google had some of this earlier but it was a very you know

[00:06:01] primitive kind of version I have used it in Japan right but this

[00:06:05] real-time sort of conversation is absolutely amazing right so let's assume

[00:06:10] that you're talking to someone who speaks Japanese and you know you only

[00:06:13] need to tell JPD that hey translate whatever you hear in English to

[00:06:16] Japanese and vice versa and it's able to do that so seamlessly that you

[00:06:21] can have a nice conversation with this person right so this I think opens

[00:06:25] up a world of possibilities for sure right Sam has earlier said you know

[00:06:31] don't build wrappers around this right I mean work on something fundamental or

[00:06:37] not or you know use AI as a capability and as a mode of delivery on some of

[00:06:45] the stuff that you do right so it's gonna be interesting for sure right

[00:06:49] I mean really the possibilities are seemingly endless at this point.

[00:06:55] Also after the preview of GPT-4 road the duolingo stocks came crashing down yeah

[00:07:01] so of course there's gonna be some sort of disruption in the market.

[00:07:06] Translation services, language services yeah a lot of that stuff is going to

[00:07:11] get massively impacted for sure right yeah and shout out to our boy from

[00:07:15] Pune right I mean seriously man the guy is one of those whiz kids right

[00:07:21] unfortunate that we keep losing these kind of folks to the US you know he

[00:07:26] cracked his J here but chose MIT right hopefully you know that situation

[00:07:33] recedes a little bit right and we have more of these folks staying back

[00:07:37] and have good good not good I mean great opportunities in India for these

[00:07:44] types of folks right yeah my friend Rajiv Mantri had a post you know kind

[00:07:49] of very sarcastically saying that it's 2035 and you know this in similar

[00:07:54] situation happening and we're all very proud about how they're exporting

[00:07:58] Indian talent but yeah I really hope we get to a point where we're able to

[00:08:03] retain some of these folks I do know that a lot of them are trying to come

[00:08:06] back and build stuff here which is which is great news but yeah we need

[00:08:12] to retain our best and brightest and for that you know our R&D has to

[00:08:16] really catch up for sure but yeah I mean the situation is definitely improving

[00:08:20] both state governments and central governments are initiating a lot of

[00:08:25] projects policy changes to develop the R&D base in India but talking about you

[00:08:31] know Indians taking the global center stage Girish Mathar Bhootham right he

[00:08:36] started the man the myth the legend so Girish Mathar Bhootham started fresh

[00:08:42] and that became the first Indian SaaS startup to list in Nasdaq but earlier on

[00:08:47] May 1st he announced that he's stepping down as the CEO of the company and

[00:08:51] will transition into the role of an executive chairman the company's

[00:08:55] president Dennis Woodside will take over the role as CEO Girish has spent

[00:09:00] almost 14 years building fresh works from a tiny startup in Chennai and

[00:09:04] scaled it to become a global SaaS player he steered fresh was through

[00:09:09] the IPO in Nasdaq in 2021 and as I mentioned it was the first startup in

[00:09:14] Nasdaq so this stellar journey is not only built fresh shows but also

[00:09:18] contributed immensely in shaping the Indian startup ecosystem I think for

[00:09:22] sure I mean if you were to list like the top three or four folks who've

[00:09:26] impacted SaaS in India I think Girish would probably rank in that list

[00:09:30] easily right on anybody's list I would say look I've often made the

[00:09:35] point that over the last 20-30 years we've learned how to do the engineering

[00:09:40] in the product aspects of things today I mean if you take a fresh works or a

[00:09:44] charge beer or a Waimo or any other product I mean I think it is world

[00:09:47] class you won't find a difference and in fact I mean routinely we top these

[00:09:51] charts on G2 and elsewhere right Gartner, Forrester etc and this next

[00:09:58] journey for us over the next 5, 10, 15 years will be to sell and market

[00:10:03] and Covid was an inflection point you know we all could hop on a zoom call

[00:10:08] and talk to someone in Texas or New York or SF so it's certainly opened up

[00:10:13] that possibility but we really need awesome brands out of India right and

[00:10:18] brand building will happen you know slowly I feel right and to that end

[00:10:25] Girish has been a fantastic brand builder you know if you look at fresh

[00:10:29] works right you know they sought to build a cheaper faster better product in

[00:10:34] a very mature category and that was not unique right I mean plenty of people

[00:10:40] tried to build you know something similar in the CRM space and the

[00:10:45] services space and so on and so forth but the true magic of fresh works

[00:10:49] is in the way they build their brand you know and they did bold and

[00:10:54] ambitious things right I mean going up against Salesforce directly

[00:10:59] the hot air balloon and Dreamforce and so on right I mean Zoho did you

[00:11:06] know some version of that earlier but these are all like big bold visionary

[00:11:11] bets right and that is really inspiring you know I mean today if someone in

[00:11:16] India can think of competing on the global stage it's people like this who

[00:11:20] really helped you know add to that confidence you know 14 years is a long

[00:11:25] long long time right and you know I've seen this myself over the course of

[00:11:30] five six seven years in a career you have to reinvent yourself at every

[00:11:34] leg of the journey and so Girish has been through God knows how many of

[00:11:38] these reinventions right he's essentially a product guy who became

[00:11:41] like a brand builder and who is now the or was now the CEO of a public

[00:11:47] company but at some point I think you know priorities matter and he's probably

[00:11:51] stepped back to focus on some other stuff the good news is that he will

[00:11:57] spend more time in the ecosystem and contribute right maybe like you know

[00:12:02] incubate or fund or nurture 10 or 20 other startups that could go on to

[00:12:08] become the next fresh works that is amazing news right I mean but I saw

[00:12:14] really touching tributes for you know Girish you know on LinkedIn and so on

[00:12:20] right because everyone who's worked with him feels overwhelmingly that he is such

[00:12:26] a visionary guy but he's also down to earth right I mean these are folks

[00:12:29] he has played football with has gone out for a drink with you know has

[00:12:33] just like had a great time with so yeah phenomenal leader and kudos to

[00:12:38] Girish you know for a fantastic fantastic journey with the fresh works

[00:12:43] and really excited for everything that's coming up at his end in the

[00:12:48] future yeah but talking about brand building in India right and I'm gonna

[00:12:52] go on a tangent over here I think we're seeing that that shift like where

[00:12:57] Indians are trying to take bread in the things built in India right I

[00:13:01] mean moving away from startups even whiskeys if you take for example yeah

[00:13:06] distilleries in India are great they create great wines we have great gens

[00:13:10] we are great single malls right and now that is taking a global stage yeah for

[00:13:16] I think this signals that there's an overall mind shift happening in the

[00:13:20] country I think the next coming of luxury brands will happen from here in

[00:13:24] India not from Milan or Paris right I'll stick my neck out and say that

[00:13:28] because look India has such artisanal talent right I mean phenomenal

[00:13:34] talent that was you know kind of systematically destroyed by all of the

[00:13:38] colonization and so on right but now that India is kind of rising again in

[00:13:42] the world becoming more prominent I certainly feel that the next few

[00:13:47] brands and products are you know gonna be Indian right and we're gonna

[00:13:51] take pride in the fact that it's made in India yeah I think that's

[00:13:55] happening yeah moving on to the next topic you know in China we chat has

[00:14:02] a market dominance unlike anything else in the world right from when people wake

[00:14:06] up in the morning checking the news booking their cabs going to office

[00:14:09] grabbing a cup of coffee to coming back home watching a movie and going to

[00:14:14] sleep we chat does everything it has almost 80 to 90 percent market share

[00:14:19] or market penetration rather a lot of companies both in the US in India in

[00:14:25] Southeast Asia have tried building this super app and you know take

[00:14:30] control of people's digital lives but no company has succeeded a super app is

[00:14:35] essentially a closed ecosystem of many applications that people would use

[00:14:39] everyday because they offer seamless integrated and contextualized

[00:14:43] experience super apps let people many people do many different things which

[00:14:50] are for example boasts of nearly 800 million active monthly users and its

[00:14:55] user base has been growing consistently with every quarter to put

[00:14:58] it into perspective the population of China is around 1.38 billion so that's

[00:15:04] roughly 60 active monthly users for every hundred people in India companies

[00:15:09] like Paytm Flipkart and even the likes of Jio and Tata have tried

[00:15:12] building a super app but none of them has seen the kind of success like

[00:15:17] WeChat why do you think that is the case because it's a super hard thing

[00:15:22] right look I mean WeChat was an outlier you can't take an outlier

[00:15:25] and make the mean case right I mean what is the promise of a super app right you

[00:15:30] build the payment layer you build the logistics layer and then you build a

[00:15:34] consumer front end and technically you know you can push any product to the

[00:15:37] consumer basically right but if only it was that simple right I mean people

[00:15:42] have realized that you know the cab business is very different from the

[00:15:45] e-commerce business is very different from the food business and so on and

[00:15:48] so forth right and multiple people as you mentioned have tried Paytm try to

[00:15:53] build this with the whole mall infrastructure right Tata has forever

[00:15:57] been doing the super app thing you know as far as I can recall maybe like six

[00:16:01] seven years eight years in the making perhaps right Jio has sort of come in

[00:16:06] and try to like incorporate things like OTT and so on and so forth it's

[00:16:11] really really hard really hard not to say that it's impossible I think

[00:16:16] still that you know one of these folks Jio or Tata with you know deep

[00:16:20] massive pockets and an entrenched sort of infrastructure ecosystem will kind of

[00:16:26] go ahead and build it but it's not something that you know your average

[00:16:31] consumer internet company can build right I mean you know 2014 2015 you

[00:16:35] guys should have been there right I mean it's it's everyone pretty much

[00:16:40] raised money on the promise of this right that hey we have you know 20 or

[00:16:44] 30 million users this will grow you know to the next 100 million or so

[00:16:48] and then you know we will push all kinds of products and services to our users

[00:16:53] but that hasn't happened right I mean we've seen that fail over the last 10

[00:16:58] years yeah I mean it's it's hard man it's really really hard these are very

[00:17:03] different businesses it's a classic case of how things look simple on paper

[00:17:08] but when you actually get down to it I mean it's insanely complex but also

[00:17:13] capturing that sort of market share and being that entrenched in the day

[00:17:18] to day lives of people I'm sure there's a regulatory or an antitrust angle

[00:17:22] for sure right I mean see look China ecosystem again is very very different

[00:17:28] right all of these companies whether it's Tencent, ByteDance etc are you

[00:17:32] know absolutely have to be in bed with the Communist Party there right

[00:17:38] they won't be able to operate otherwise right in India of course I

[00:17:42] mean it's different right we don't have those kind of things but even

[00:17:47] places like Southeast Asia right where technically I mean Gojek was the super

[00:17:51] app right Gojek, Tokopedia if you guys remember Grab right I mean these guys

[00:17:55] did try to build it but hasn't scaled to that level you know so it's just

[00:18:02] very very hard very hard you need like deep deep pockets and you need this

[00:18:07] sort of infrastructure ecosystem to kind of support like a 10-15 year

[00:18:11] journey you know WeChat is old right WeChat is not a new one right I

[00:18:16] mean it's been a long time in the making right but I don't think it's

[00:18:21] anything to sort of crib about from a consumer perspective right because I

[00:18:25] mean today think about the number of payment options that we have right

[00:18:29] and I mean of course the phenomenal UPI infrastructure that we have right

[00:18:34] I think choice is always good in these matters yeah there's some amount

[00:18:39] of you know economies of scale and streamlining and everything that will

[00:18:45] help like like I pay all my bills via Google Pay and I would love to do that

[00:18:50] right and not have three or four five different platforms to do that

[00:18:53] similarly I would love all of the you know other stuff to be on one platform

[00:18:58] as well but it's good to have choice really good to have choice as a

[00:19:02] consumer right yeah no I think that's important right you never know like

[00:19:07] where one thing may break yeah I mean if that biryani is like you know

[00:19:11] it's taking 30 minutes more on Swiggy you might want to order it on Zomato right or

[00:19:16] or vice versa so was that comedian who came to perform in India right Russell

[00:19:22] Peters no not Russell Peters some bigger guy it was happening near

[00:19:27] Manitha Tech Park what was an abandoned cement factory apparently and

[00:19:31] everything was like QR code QR code QR code but the problem was internet

[00:19:35] thought was not working over there and people were like stuck yeah don't

[00:19:39] solve a problem that doesn't exist basically okay well the focus in the

[00:19:45] Indian ecosystem is not to build a super app currently a lot of companies

[00:19:49] are focusing on semiconductors and chip making mindgrove technologies which

[00:19:54] is a peak 15 backed startup and incubated in IT madras has launched

[00:19:59] India's first commercial high-performance system on chips or

[00:20:02] SOC for IOT devices the chip can control everything from wearables like

[00:20:08] smartwatches to smart city devices like connected electricity water and gas meter

[00:20:12] and even connected home devices like smart locks fan speakers as well as EV

[00:20:17] battery management mindgrove claims that the risk five based chip or RISC

[00:20:23] five base chip will let domestic original equipment manufacturers use an

[00:20:28] Indian SOC on their devices this will cut overall costs the chip is also

[00:20:34] 30% cheaper than the ones available in the market now along with that Zoho has

[00:20:39] also announced plans to invest 700 million dollars in chip making but

[00:20:43] unlike conventional silicon based chips these semiconductors are tailored for

[00:20:48] specialized commercial applications so we are seeing a lot of companies

[00:20:52] emerge in the chip making space in India yeah while you know Sam Altman

[00:20:56] came and commented that hey you know it's pointless for Indian startup

[00:21:00] ecosystem to build another chat GPT but hey we are here trying to build

[00:21:04] things that make chat GPT yeah it's you know I mean if you asked me about

[00:21:09] five years back right I mean I had this idea that people will start

[00:21:13] innovating at the infrastructure level right which is at the cloud level okay

[00:21:18] so you have applications let's say you have a application for finance

[00:21:22] manufacturing whatever it is I thought all these SAS guys will get pressure

[00:21:26] from the likes of you know AWS or Microsoft and so on who will build a

[00:21:31] finance cloud a manufacturing cloud and so on and so forth right and perhaps

[00:21:35] like offer 70 80 percent of the features that an application can

[00:21:38] provide and then the rest I mean can be cobbled together however right

[00:21:42] either product or through an internal tech team but now we've

[00:21:45] skipped that cloud and infrastructure layer and were directly on to chips

[00:21:49] right which is phenomenal actually I mean it's it's this is why you know

[00:21:53] we often look at tech and tech or any other trend it doesn't progress

[00:21:57] linearly right I mean you can never sort of excel sheet extrapolate it it

[00:22:02] always goes in like exponential stuff right I mean you can't you can't ever

[00:22:06] predict the future because of this there are always leaps in between that

[00:22:09] you are never able to wrap your head around right so yeah I mean

[00:22:14] Nvidia's big bet was GPUs right and so I mean yeah these kind of

[00:22:20] specialized chips for different functions like you mentioned EV for

[00:22:24] instance IOT devices IOT devices and so on I mean yeah awesome I mean that

[00:22:30] could that could also drive some amount of like standardization and bring up

[00:22:36] better compatibility between devices also I feel right because see IOT for

[00:22:41] example I mean forever we've been struggling with the fact that you know

[00:22:44] a fan from somewhere a home application from somewhere so on and so

[00:22:49] forth I mean doesn't all you know mesh together right God knows I mean we have

[00:22:53] like a tough enough time figuring out our fire stick or whatever else we have

[00:22:58] to connect to the two or three devices that we have but this at the chip

[00:23:03] level itself I mean could drive a lot of streamlining is what I feel yeah

[00:23:08] no also like in the likes of the pro and all they have their own smart

[00:23:11] home devices and of course not related to this news but in the future

[00:23:16] when everything starts coming together I mean it'll be more seamless yeah yeah

[00:23:21] seems so awesome so in the next report we see Uber's financials that is

[00:23:29] recently released it reported revenues of 19 billion dollars in FY23 India

[00:23:36] contributed to less than 1% in this share Uber's average order value per

[00:23:41] user in India is a third of its world average and perhaps even lower

[00:23:45] when compared to leading geographies like Australia where its average order

[00:23:49] value can go up as go up to $30 per ride now in India there is limited room

[00:23:56] for growth for Uber and the CEO has also acknowledged that there's a lot of

[00:24:00] market regulations which factor into its growth and also competition from

[00:24:06] local players so definitely the right for Uber ahead is a bumpy one yeah but

[00:24:11] does that mean Uber will soon see an exit or you know what could be the way

[00:24:15] out I don't know I mean it really doesn't make sense right I mean after

[00:24:19] being in this market for about 10 years if this is contributing less than

[00:24:23] a percent of your revenue that's a serious cause for concern right I mean

[00:24:29] think of the investments and just think of the you know lack of focus

[00:24:33] or distraction this would be right in the larger scheme of things and this

[00:24:37] is just going to get more and more commoditized right I mean you know ride

[00:24:43] hailing at this point of time is a utility right namayatri and the likes

[00:24:48] will come up in multiple different ways and multiple different places that you

[00:24:53] know this is the technology itself will get ubiquitous right so the

[00:24:58] pricing leverage has I mean has reduced for sure right I mean all our

[00:25:04] individual rights are expensive more so than earlier but still they're not able

[00:25:08] to make money you know so I at some point I mean they will just you know

[00:25:13] sort of consolidate I feel like I mean Ola has done this right I mean Ola

[00:25:16] expanded to Spain and you know Australia elsewhere they've kind of

[00:25:21] shut down all of those yeah they also wrapping even like on in UK they

[00:25:24] launched you know took took services right but they have wrapped that up

[00:25:28] as well to focus on India and prepare for its IPO yeah yeah well talking about

[00:25:34] IPOs well not really IPOs but rather becoming a unicorn Porter is the latest

[00:25:40] unicorn to join the roster in India they've raised fresh funds from family

[00:25:45] and friends where individuals bought shares from the esop pool at a

[00:25:50] valuation of 1 billion dollars around 15 to 20 individuals bought shares of

[00:25:55] 25 crores into Porter this makes Porter the third unicorn in India after hang

[00:26:01] on the total fundraise was 25 crores yeah okay a total of 15 to 20

[00:26:07] individuals bought shares worth 25 crores at a billion dollar valuation

[00:26:12] okay I can buy I can buy one crore at two billion dollars also right I mean

[00:26:32] so yeah technically yes they are you know unicorn but quite unicorn yeah but

[00:26:39] but 25 crores I mean yeah it's about three million dollars right so it's

[00:26:45] it's not like a hundred million dollar raise at a unicorn valuation so I suppose

[00:26:50] that is the you know nuance here so technically yes unicorn but it joins

[00:26:57] the roster of three other companies from India this year the first unicorn

[00:27:03] of 2024 was Perfuse the second was Cruthrim again that was also a bit

[00:27:08] a dicey way of becoming a unicorn startup but hey I mean good news to the

[00:27:15] team their value is growing and hopefully we'll make some friends in

[00:27:20] Porter when they go public yeah yeah no but look this whole deliver service

[00:27:28] right I mean that Danzo is you know on its last legs right unfortunately or

[00:27:34] it seems like I really hope that Danzo you know stays for however long right I

[00:27:39] mean it's the best app service ever I feel but Porter is like a premium

[00:27:46] Danzo in that sense right I mean they charge what 500 bucks and stuff like

[00:27:50] that to move things but I think Porter's focus is also more on the

[00:27:54] B2B side yeah so apart from Porter here is a quick roundup of all the

[00:28:02] key fundraisers that happened in the past seven days e-commerce startup

[00:28:06] Misho raised 275 million dollars in a funding round of primary and secondary

[00:28:10] share sales microfinance company Annapurna finance raised 600 crores or

[00:28:15] 71.8 million dollars from PiraMal alternatives EV charging

[00:28:21] infrastructure startup relux electric raised 250 crore rupees or around 30

[00:28:25] million dollars from a group of private real estate and infrastructure

[00:28:29] vendors drone startup Dakshan unmanned systems raised 150 crore rupees or 18

[00:28:34] million dollars from Coromandel International robotic startup Niko

[00:28:39] robotics region on 13 million dollars from bidra innovation ventures fulcrum

[00:28:43] global capital and existing investor Omnivore so I think from the lot me

[00:28:48] show has a significant fund is or 275 million dollars but that also I think

[00:28:52] gets overshadowed with go digits IPO that's coming up the IPO is on and

[00:28:59] there's an oversubscription of around 10x so that means the hunger in the

[00:29:04] IPO market look I mean Indian retailers are I mean retail investors

[00:29:09] not retailers and retail investors are super starved of you know startups

[00:29:16] and tech companies for sure right I mean I'm saying this even post the

[00:29:20] Nika and Paytm experience right Zomato has recovered fabulously right so

[00:29:26] whoever has invested in Zomato you guys owe us a party right we spoke a lot

[00:29:31] about Zomato but didn't buy any of the shares right but anyway I mean so

[00:29:39] it's all good I feel even in the me showcase right I mean I think it

[00:29:43] just like shows a greater you know greater confidence in the business I

[00:29:47] would say right if they've bought as many shares right so yeah yeah awesome

[00:29:54] so for the talk of the town section we have a brand new report from bloom

[00:29:59] ventures you know one thing which I really like about the folks at bloom is

[00:30:03] that they have really taken the route of content driven VC funding

[00:30:07] right they're doing this research in house and they're sharing it with the

[00:30:10] equation that's really great the latest report talks about the elder

[00:30:13] care space in India will willing the entire report in the description

[00:30:17] for you to check it out and I'd highly recommend that you do but some of the

[00:30:20] key points that the report makes is that elder care is the fastest growing

[00:30:25] segment of population elderly population has grown by around 40% in

[00:30:30] 2021 to 31 compared to 8% for general population COVID-19 lockdowns and have

[00:30:37] led to urban seniors become more tech savvy and baby boomers are

[00:30:41] becoming seniors which are also the more affluent segment in this

[00:30:45] demographic there's a rise of nuclear families and less stigma about living

[00:30:49] alone and there are more children becoming NRI which means there are

[00:30:53] deeper pain points so definitely a lucrative space to build in yeah but

[00:30:59] we are not seen a lot of startups in the space as of now there are a

[00:31:03] few for sure on the services side Mitra robotics run by Balaji

[00:31:08] Vishwanathan a few of you may recollect him from Quora he was a

[00:31:12] top writer there is also in this elder care segment right I mean they have a

[00:31:17] robot which does a bunch of stuff right look we haven't really figured

[00:31:22] this problem out right I mean obviously nuclear families a lot less support

[00:31:27] for folks who are aging you know and so the answer is some sort of a

[00:31:33] technology slash community living kind of thing right I mean so I think

[00:31:40] this market for sure you know is very very lucrative especially at India scale

[00:31:45] you know so there is various domains also in which things can be built it I

[00:31:51] mean quality of life which could be nutrition convenience personal care

[00:31:54] there is safety there's recreation there's work and finance and of

[00:31:58] course the whole insurance aspect of it as well there are many different

[00:32:01] aspects and this is also paying demographic right this is not like your

[00:32:06] you know let's say your tier 3 tier 4 sort of a segment where you know money is

[00:32:10] hard to come by and they're more value conscious this is also a segment that

[00:32:14] will pay right and you know you can hate to say it but you can guilt trip

[00:32:20] people to paying for their children and also their parents and whatnot right

[00:32:26] so it's a great segment to sort of look at really and you know I mean

[00:32:32] just by personal experience there are like a ton of problems to solve in this

[00:32:36] segment for sure folks if anyone of you is building in this elder care space do

[00:32:42] reach out to us we'd love to talk to you and understand more of how you're

[00:32:45] doing things so yeah I guess that's it quick not not a very quick roundup

[00:32:51] but it was fun doing this after a while we hope you enjoyed this

[00:32:55] episode do let us know your thoughts in the comments and if you have any

[00:32:58] opinions on any of the news that we discussed please let us know we'd love

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[00:33:14] next week with more exciting news till then keep following us on social

[00:33:18] media bye guys bye see you have a great weekend or week