Zomato in “cash conservation” mode

After 7 days of bidding, India’s 5G auction—the largest ever auction of airwaves in the country—ended yesterday with spectrum worth Rs 1,50,173 crore being sold.

As expected, it was led by Reliance Jio, which acquired close to half of all the airwaves for Rs 88,078 crore. Airtel spent Rs 43,084 crore while Vodafone Idea Ltd bought spectrum for Rs 18,784 crore. All three players acquired multiple bands.

On the other hand, wild card entry Adani Group bought 400 MHz, or less than 1% of all spectrum sold, for Rs 212 crore, only in the 26 GHz band, which is not for public networks. 

Meanwhile, domestic indices continue to ride the bull, extending gains to the fourth day. BSE Sensex surged ~550 points, reaching over 58,000 in months while Nifty50 rose by 182 points to close at 17,340. Even the rupee held its own, strengthening its gains to close at 79.02 per dollar.

In other news, lots of things are happening outside the Earth’s orbit as the James Webb Space Telescope continues its exploration of the unknown. After spotting what may be its first supernova, the JWST has now found a galaxy with no heavy elements.

Here’s to solving the universe.

Zomato in “cash conservation” mode

Zomato Limited reported net losses of Rs 186 crore for the first quarter of FY2023—a 48% reduction from the comparable quarter last year when the foodtech unicorn reported Rs 360 crore in losses. 

The total revenue from operations grew to Rs 141.4 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2022, compared to Rs 844.4 crore reported for the year-ago quarter. 

“...there is no plan to make any more minority investments as we are in cash conservation mode, and are busy executing what we already have on our plates right now,” said Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal in filings made with the BSE. 

Cash conservation:

• In EBITDA terms, Zomato’s food delivery business registered breakeven during Q1 FY2023. 
• According to the filings, the average number of monthly transacting customers for the app stood at 1.7 crore during Q1 FY 2023, compared to 1.23 crore in the year-ago quarter. 
• After the go-ahead from the regulator, Zomato plans on cross-leveraging Zomato’s customer base for Blinkit and vice-versa.

July heralds funding winter

After a relatively strong June, which saw $2.7 billion in funds raised across 128 deals, startup funding was tepid in July.

The latest month’s funding of $652.7 million takes the total fundraise in the first seven months of 2022 to a little over $17.7 billion. In terms of funding value, this is a little below 3.7% of the total funds raised.

A gloomy July:

• On an annual basis, this is a decline of 89.8%, compared with $6.4 billion raised in July 2021.
• The fall in funding affected startups across stages. 
• Growth-stage deals and late-stage deals were down 50.4% and 85% each.

Asset managers for crypto

For many, cryptocurrency remains a mystery. Virginia-based Kunji has decided to make investing in this new asset class simpler.

Launched in June 2022, Kunji is a centralised crypto asset management platform that enables users to make passive crypto investments with the help of digital asset managers (DAMs).

Key takeaways:

• Kunji is currently live in the Beta phase with 200 users. 
• DAMs take 30% of the total return from the user as a part of the commission. 
• In the future, it expects to generate revenue through platform fees from DAMs, transaction fees, and fiat conversion or reconversion fees. 

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