1947 Tech 🇮🇳: 138
1947 Tech 🇮🇳: 138
Kunal Shah, Digit Insurance 🦄, Byju’s acquiring Akash for $1B, Gaming firm Nazara Technologies files for IPO, and more!
1. Kunal Shah says Big Tech has India all wrong
The world’s biggest tech companies descend on India to tap into “the next billion” customers. Shah, of course, says they’ve got it all wrong: “We borrow these terms from companies and assume it’s the norm.”
Global startups came to India for DAU [daily active users] and MAU [monthly active users], not for ARPU [average revenue per user]. I realized that YouTube, Google, and all of these companies had hundreds and hundreds of millions of customers, but their ARPU was literally nothing. YouTube is used by almost every Indian, but the ARPU of YouTube in India is probably less than $2 per annum, which can barely cover the streaming cost.
But these big companies don’t mind it. Because when you’re a global company, you can show 4 billion active users to the public market, and they’ll give you a better market cap for it. Your ARPU comes from America, but you get your DAU from India. When you join the numbers, they look nice.
Excellent read.
2. Digit Insurance becomes first Indian unicorn for 2021; valued at $1.9B
Here comes another 🦄. With this pace, India will have 100 unicorns by 2025. Currently, India has 37 unicorns and for the past 2 years, India is producing on average one unicorn every month.
Bengaluru-based insure-tech startup Digit Insurance has become the first Indian startup to enter the coveted unicorn club — private companies valued at $1 billion and above — for the year 2021.
According to a company statement, General insurance startup Digit Insurance has been valued at $1.9 billion, following its latest undisclosed investment round announced on Friday. In its last fundraise in October 2019, it had raised $817 million. It attained unicorn status after a span of four years.
The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, founded in 2016 by insurance industry veteran Kamesh Goyal, has been backed by its investor Fairfax Holdings — a Canadian based investment powerhouse led by Prem Watsa.
Other investors who have invested in this startup include A91 Partners, Faering Capital, and TVS Capital.
https://yourstory.com/2021/01/digit-insurance-insuretech-startup-funding-first-indian-unicorn
A Tweet:
Worth reading:
Gaming firm Nazara Technologies files for IPO link
Byju’s is reportedly buying Indian brick-and-mortar institute Aakash for $1 billion link
SoftBank-backed Hike shuts down, vanishes from app stores in India link
PhonePe leaves Google Pay behind in UPI market share in December link
Curefit acquires US-based digital fitness company Onyx; to improve its at-home fitness product, expand global biz link
Funding:
Tiger Global, others buy $50 million shares in Unacademy in secondary transition link
Prosus Ventures leads $30 million investment in Indian agritech startup DeHaat link
MFine lands $16 million funding led by Heritas Capital link
Salesforce leads $15M investment in Indian HR tech platform Darwinbox link
Crypto investment platform CoinSwitch Kuber raises $15 Mn link