A sunny future for Indian agritech; KreditBee intends to go public soon

Hello,

It’s finally happened.

Ola Electric has filed its draft red herring prospectus with SEBI for an initial public offering (IPO). The IPO will comprise Rs 5,500 crore in a fresh issue and an offer for sale of more than 95 million shares. Of them, Co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal will offload 47.39 million shares at a face value of Rs 10.

With the IPO, Ola Electric will become the first Indian EV maker to go public, and the first auto company to list on the stock exchange since Bajaj Auto went public in 2008. 

Also, workspace solutions company Awfis Space Solutions has also filed a DRHP for its IPO, comprising a fresh issue of up to Rs 160 crore and an offer for sale of over 10 million equity shares. 

Meanwhile, India's benchmark indices advanced on Friday but ended their longest weekly winning streak in six years, as investors booked record-high profits earlier this week. 

Both NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex lost about 0.5% each this week, dragged by the fall in recent outperformers like financials and auto stocks.

In other news, the Indian startup ecosystem is having a relatively better run with VC funding, with $198 million pouring in domestically this week. So far this month, startups have raised a total of $800 million.

ICYMI: The cultural trends that defined 2023!

Lastly, as you gear up for the Christmas holidays, here’s a festive movie guide to enjoy with your friends and family!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• How 2023 fared for agritech companies
• KreditBee intends to go public soon
• What equality means to Indian youth

Here’s your trivia for today: Which languages do not use gender as a part of their grammar?

Agritech

How 2023 fared for agritech companies

In 2023, Indian agritech startups faced a funding crunch and had to go back to the drawing board to figure out sustainable growth. Even as startups, including those in agritech, redraw their strategy, the sector in India is on track to be a $34 billion market opportunity by 2027, according to Avendus Capital.

“Agriculture is a seasonal business, and there are bound to be some shocks. Instead of comparing month-on-month growth, our request to investors is to look at it from a seasonal growth perspective,” says Subhadeep Sanyal, Partner at Omnivore.

Major trends:

• Sanyal of Omnivore says the firm will evaluate bets on agri and rural SME financing, sustainability in agriculture, agri and food-focused biosciences, livestock nutrition, and farm-sourced food from its $150 million Fund III. 
• Services and businesses in agritech will do well with an omnichannel approach as the rural customer continues to rely on “touch and feel” for certain categories. 
• In the case of product and technology-led companies, affordability for the end-consumer is key, says Devendra Gupta, Co-founder and CEO of Ecozen.

Top Deals of the Week

Startup: Kitchens@

Amount: $65M

Round: Series C

Startup: VideoVerse

Amount: $45M

Round: Growth

Startup: BluSmart

Amount: $24M

Round: Equity

Interview

KreditBee intends to go public soon

Fintech platform KreditBee is inching closer to a public listing. Madhusudan Ekambaram, Co-founder and CEO of KreditBee, says the credit platform is probably one round away from an IPO. 

“Currently, we are looking at product diversification. We are looking to offer gold loans and loans against property. Once that part of the puzzle is solved, we will look at an IPO,” says Madhusudan in a conversation with Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO, YourStory.

All about lending:

• KreditBee acts as a facilitator of the loans, wherein all loan applications are approved and sanctioned by the Reserve Bank of India registered banks and NBFCs. 
• Madhusudan says that KreditBee uses data analytics and alternative data sources as estimators for cash flows.
• KreditBee also works with credit bureaus and engages in conversations with these entities to help build a holistic data collection process. 

Social Justice

What equality means to Indian youth

India has the world’s youngest population and, thereby, has the world’s youngest workforce. They envision justice and equality as fundamental rights not just on paper but in practice. SocialStory asked youngsters—from various walks of life—their idea of an equal and just society.

The idea of equality:

• "As a small-town boy from Tiruppur, equality to me would be my workplace or my boss recognising the large gap that I have to fill—economically and socially—to live and work here and helping me do it," says Surya Bharathi.
• "Equality and justice are achieved when there is a secure environment where everyone can ask for accommodations with self-assurance, and when trials are made to accommodate a diverse collection of individuals," says Khushi Kaushik.
• "Equality to me is...for everyone—regardless of their religious and cultural backgrounds—to get access to equal rights and finding ways to bridge the gap that prevents this from happening in society," says Farhat Khan.

News & updates

• Project down: One of the longest-running Hyperloop startups, Hyperloop One, once backed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, will cease operations on December 31. It’s the latest stumble in the tech industry’s attempt to bring life to an idea Elon Musk first put forth in a white paper in 2013. 
• Debts: American consumers splurged in 2023, boosting the economy with revenge travel, Taylor Swift tickets, and expensive restaurant meals. But a lot of it was funded with debt. Credit card balances in the US increased by about $48 billion in the third quarter alone, pushing the total to $1.08 trillion. 
• Losses: Tencent lost about $43.5 billion in market value on Friday after China surprised financial markets with a fresh set of rules aimed at curbing excessive gaming and spending. The draft guidelines sank the Hong Kong-listed shares of Tencent, NetEase, and Bilibili—among the largest online gaming-related counters in the world’s biggest online gaming market.

Which languages do not use gender as a part of their grammar?

Answer: Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, Turkish, Indonesian, and Vietnamese, to name just a few do not have grammatical genders at all. 

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