ETtech Evening Briefing on Feb 12, 2021: Meesho to join unicorn club, Bumble’s blockbuster IPO

Good night,

Startup unicorns are uncommon, as are girls within the nook workplace. Self-made girls billionaires, who’re additionally CEOs, are rarer nonetheless. Today, now we have information about all of them. It’s a type of uncommon days.

Here’s a take a look at the highest tech information immediately, in beneath 5 minutes.

1. Meesho set to be second unicorn of 2021

Meesho
is in the final stages of negotiations to elevate $250 million in a funding spherical led by Softbank Vision Fund, a number of folks within the know have stated.

• Upon completion, the funding spherical will double Meesho’s valuation — propelling the Facebook-backed startup into the coveted unicorn membership.

• The deal comes at a time when Meesho is estimated to have largely recovered revenues misplaced due to lockdowns final 12 months.

• Meesho is at the moment the chief in India’s fast-growing social commerce sector, which is seeing a gentle inflow of startups.

Not the primary unicorn of 2021: Meesho wouldn’t be the primary unicorn of 2021 — that honour went to
Prem Watsa-backed Digit. After the insurtech startup’s Rs 135-crore funding spherical, led by present non-public fairness buyers A91 Partners, Faering Capital and TVS Capital, it’s valued at $1.9 billion.

The 12 months of the unicorn IPOs: But a post-pandemic India Inc
will be shaped by India’s startup ecosystem. Several unicorns, from
Delhivery and Flipkart to
Zomato and Grofers, are wanting to shed their startup tags and listing on the bourses—in India or elsewhere.

Will Meesho observe swimsuit? Only time will inform.

2.
Knowing Whitney Wolfe Herd

An organization catering to girls and led by girls has made its 31-year-old feminine founder a billionaire.

Shares in Bumble Inc, the courting app the place girls make the primary transfer, soared 67% in its buying and selling debut to $72 in New York on Thursday, valuing chief govt
Whitney Wolfe Herd’s stake at $1.5 billion.

She joins a rarefied membership of self-made girls billionaires, who account for simply 5% of the world’s 500 largest fortunes. Self-made male billionaires outnumber their feminine counterparts virtually 20-to-1.

Who is she? Wolfe Herd began Bumble, the “by women, for women” courting app, in 2014 following her departure from Tinder, the rival firm she helped discovered.

The cut up was acrimonious, marked by a sexual harassment lawsuit Wolfe Herd filed in opposition to the corporate, alleging amongst different issues that she was repeatedly referred to as derogatory names by executives and stripped of her co-founder function since having a “girl” with that title “makes the corporate look like a joke”. The swimsuit was later settled.

First of many: “Hopefully this will not be a rare headline,” Wolfe Herd stated, referring to the individuality of Bumble’s women-led administration. “Hopefully this will be the norm. It’s the right thing to do, it’s a priority for us and it should be a priority for everyone else.”

3. ETtech Deals Digest

This week on ETtech Deals Digest, a digital funds agency closed in on unicorn standing, an IPO-bound agency raised new funds, whereas the edtech gold rush continued in India. (
Read more)

4. Disney closes in on Netflix, however Hotstar a drag

The Walt Disney Co. stated its streaming companies
flourished whereas its parks, journey and movie companies remained hobbled by the pandemic on the finish of final 12 months. The leisure colossus noticed subscriptions to its streaming companies—Disney+, Hulu, ESPN and Hotstar— surge to greater than 146 million subscribers from October to December.

That’s shut to Netflix Inc.’s
subscriber base of 203 million.

The income hole might have been equally slender…
but for Hotstar.

Disney+ clocked a median income per consumer (ARPU) of $4.03 within the quarter ended January 2, a major dip from $4.52 within the earlier quarter and a 28% dip from $5.56 in the identical quarter final 12 months. The firm attributed the decline to the a lot decrease subscription charges of Hotstar in India and Indonesia.

Hotstar at the moment provides annual subscription plans at Rs 399 to Rs 1,499 in India. In comparability, Disney+ within the US prices $70, or round Rs 5,000 a 12 months.

Netflix, in the meantime, had an ARPU of $11.02 globally.

5. Jack Dorsey‘s and Jay-Z’s ₿Trust for India

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
has set up ₿Trust, an endowment to fund bitcoin improvement in India and Africa. Joining him within the enterprise is Shawn Corey Carter, aka Jay-Z. The belief won’t have any binding path from them.

Why is that this important? Dorsey’s push for bitcoin improvement in India comes at a time when the Indian authorities is wanting to introduce its personal digital foreign money and ban “private” cryptocurrencies. Twitter has additionally been in a
standoff with the Indian authorities over what constitutes free speech.

Also Read:
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey talks about decentralisation, foraying into other formats