India at the Cricket World Cup; Inside Vahdam India’s new tea room

Hello,

Today, the Indian men’s cricket team will begin their World Cup 2023 campaign with their first match against Australia in Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium. Here’s where you can catch all the action!

The season of earnings is upon us. 

KrazyBee, a micro-lending platform that offers personal loans to customers via the KreditBee app, has recorded a revenue of Rs 71,700 lakh from operations in FY22-23 compared to Rs 33,660 lakh in the previous year, at a 113% increase. It reported a net profit of Rs 6,509 lakh in FY22-23, compared to a net profit of Rs 2,879 lakh last year.

Meanwhile, B2B ecommerce marketplace, Moglix, saw its revenue from operations rise 81.85% to Rs 4,128 crore in FY22-23 compared to Rs 2,270 crore in FY21-22. Loss after tax widened from Rs 146 crore in the previous year to Rs 194 crore in FY22-23.

In other news, SoftBank—through its affiliates SVF India Holdings (Cayman) Ltd and SVF Python II (Cayman) Ltd—offloaded a 2.5% stake in PolicyBazaar's parent company PB Fintech through open market transactions for Rs 871 crore. 

As per the block deal data available on the NSE, SVF India Holdings (Cayman) sold 30,97,576 shares and SVF Python II (Cayman) disposed of 83,23,635 shares, amounting to a 0.7% and 1.8% stake in PB Fintech, respectively, at an average price of Rs 762.80 apiece.

ICYMI: From the poster child of hyperlocal delivery to a startup facing debilitating challenges—what went wrong at Dunzo?

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• India at the Cricket World Cup
• Inside Vahdam India’s new tea room
• Boon: Sustainable water solution provider

Here’s your trivia for today: Which is the only country to win 60, 50, and 20-over format Cricket World Cups?

Sports

India at the Cricket World Cup

Forty years ago, when India lifted the cricket World Cup for the first time, G S R Manian was in Nagpur, enjoying the match at his neighbour’s place. While he had followed the 1975 and ‘79 World Cups through radio commentary, watching the '83 final live on television was a thrilling new experience.

Ahead of India’s opener on Sunday, fans of Indian cricket, just like Manian, reminisce about their World Cup memories and India’s hits and misses over the years.

Nostalgia:

• For Archana Mohan, a writer from Bengaluru, the brilliant bowling by Venkatesh Prasad in the quarter-final clash against Pakistan at the 1996 Wills World Cup remains etched in her memory.
• Though World Cup 2023 has already begun, for diehard cricket fans in India, the tournament will get well and truly underway when India takes on Australia in its opening game on Sunday at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai.
• Kevin Baretto from Mumbai is rooting for Shubhman Gill and Rohit Sharma to come good as “big match” players in the tournament and Kohli to take on Pakistan on October 14. He is planning to watch the India-Pakistan match on the big screen with friends.

Wine and Food

Inside Vahdam India’s new tea room

The Vadham India Tea Room offers a sensorial experience to tea enthusiasts, incorporating both wellness and education in equal measure.

While the digitally-native brand offers a large selection of wellness teas through multiple online channels, there was a missing link—the need for a sensorial experience that could educate and elevate the tea-buying experience for consumers.

Cup of tea:

• Founded by fourth-generation entrepreneur Bala Sarda, who has a strong lineage in tea, Vahdam India prides itself on being a homegrown Indian brand for the world. 
• Interestingly, there is a rotating menu offering a curated selection of four teas of the day—a combination of blends, green teas, herbal teas, or black teas in iced and hot formats. 
• Vahdam India’s unique offerings include single-estate first flush and second flush teas, apart from innovative blends such as Berry Cinnamon Herbal Tea, Hibiscus Rose Herbal Tea, Chamomile Lavender-Green Tea, and Vanilla Matcha.

Startup

Boon: Sustainable water solution provider

According to the UN, only 9% of global plastic waste is recycled while most of it ends up in the water bodies. It is predicted that oceans will have more plastic than fish by 2050. 

To address this, mother-son duo Vibha Tripathi and Advait Kumar founded Boon in 2015. The Gurugram and Singapore-based startup offers drinking water solutions to communities, rural areas, hospitality players, corporate firms, and others.

Clean water:

• Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled global water-tech startup Boon (formerly known as Swajal) is trying to solve two problems at once: Reduce plastic waste and improve access to clean water.
• Boon operates on a B2B and B2G (business-to-government) model with 60% of its business coming from the hospitality sector, 30% from corporate, and 10% from its WaterATMs—a solar-powered self-service water refilling solution.
• Boon is currently growing at 4X YoY and is expecting to generate Rs 35 crore in FY23-24 and close to 90 crore next year. It also plans to enter the B2C space with a home water purification solution.

News & updates

• Fines: South Korea’s telecommunication regulator, the Korea Communications Commission, plans to levy fines on Google and Apple, which could total up to $50.5 million for violating the country’s in-app payment law. 
• Blocked: As the BBC determines how to use generative AI best, it has also blocked web crawlers from OpenAI and Common Crawl from accessing its websites. It joins CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, and other news organisations in preventing web crawlers from accessing copyrighted material. 
• Dispute: Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai is set to be called by Epic Games Inc. to testify in an antitrust trial over Google Play policies that could threaten billions of dollars in revenue generated by the app marketplace. The high-stakes fight kicked off after Epic sued Google in 2020 claiming that its app store distribution, payment, and fee policies are unlawful.

Which is the only country to win 60, 50, and 20-over format Cricket World Cups?

Answer: India. After winning the last 60-over World Cup under Kapil Dev's leadership in 1983, India won the 20-over and 50-over World Cups under MS Dhoni's captaincy in 2007 and 2011, respectively.

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