⚡️PhonePe raises $350M, Supreme Court refuses to grant Google interim relief

🤩 The Good

Walmart-backed PhonePe raises $350M from private equity firm General Atlantic at a $12B+ valuation. This makes the startup India's most valuable fintech company. The company said in a statement that it is looking to raise up to $1B in the current round in tranches. PhonePe holds a 47% market share in India, ahead of Google Pay which has 33%.

Bharti Airtel announces a ₹2,000 crore investment in Telangana to establish a data centre. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Airtel revealed that the hyperscale data centre will be deployed in 5-7 years. The investment will be made through Airtel’s data centre arm, Nxtra Data Centers, and will further attract investments from their customers.

👿 The Bad

Swiggy plans to lay off 8%-10% of its ~6,000-strong workforce. The company is looking to cut expenditure in the midst of a funding winter, and hopes to become profitable before its IPO, for which it plans to file papers in December 2023. Employees in the product, engineering, and operations divisions are expected to be laid off.

Fintech startup funding sees a 47% drop from 2021, with $5.65B raised in 2022. With a total of 390 rounds of funding in 2022, there was also a 29% drop in the number of rounds as compared with 2021. India is still the third-highest country in terms of funding received in the fintech sector, behind the US and the UK.

India is the world's third largest auto market but lacks EV buyers. 4M+ four-wheel vehicles were sold in India in 2022, just behind China and the US. But only ~32K EVs were sold in the country as of December 2022. While two-wheelers have enjoyed some success, it hasn’t been easy to replicate this for four-wheelers due to complexities of power systems, notorious traffic, and poor charging infrastructure.

🤔 Wait-and-Watch

Google fails to obtain interim relief from the Supreme Court on the ~₹1,337 crore CCI fine in the Android case. The Supreme Court held that there was no “manifest error” in the findings of the Competition Commission of India who had penalized Google India for abuse of dominant position in the Android ecosystem. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal had upheld this decision and directed Google to pay 10% of the amount. While refusing to impose a stay on the decision, the Supreme Court did not comment on the merits of the case since the appeal is pending before the NCLAT.

Government proposes 40 amendments to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. The IBC was enacted in 2016 when India’s banks were weighed down by over-leveraged companies and soaring defaults. Given the change in the Indian financial climate and prolonged litigation prompted by the resolution process, new changes are being introduced. This includes compulsory admission of claims on establishing default, piecemeal resolution, and special powers to the government in cases of public interest.

🌎 International

Nothing major in the international section today.

Catch you tomorrow! 🌞