Inside the business of content creation

Hello,

Mumbai is now Asia’s billionaire capital.

For the first time, India’s financial capital leads Asia on the Global Rich List published by Hurun Research Institute. The city is now home to 93 billionaires.

Delhi also broke into the coveted list of top 10 cities, which is led by New York and London.

Meanwhile, India is doubling down on advertising guidelines.

The Central Consumer Protection Authority has requested that the Advertising Standard Council of India pass on to its authority any ads that are non-compliant with its code and potentially violate the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.

Elsewhere, the lending sector is raising big bucks.

NBFC Avanse Financial Services Ltd has raised Rs 1,000 crore led by Mubadala Investment Company and Avendus PE to provide affordable education financing for Indian students. Also, non-bank lender Ambit Finvest has raised Rs 690 crore from a Japanese securities group and other existing investors.

Oh, and Saudi Arabia is all set to participate in the Miss Universe event for the first time.

Meet 27-year-old influencer Rumy Alqahtani who will be representing the Kingdom.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• What it means to be a content creator
• Cashing in on the ‘trash’ opportunity

Here’s your trivia for today: Derived from the Tamil word ‘kattumaram’, which type of vessel has a twin hull and was used by the early Austronesian people for seafaring?

TechSparks

What it means to be a content creator

In the content creation space, one must constantly reinvent themselves to stay relevant, sustain audience interest, and set themselves apart from the rest, concurred content creators RJ Princy Parikh, Anshuman Sharma, Ayush Shukla, and Rohit Shroff at TechSparks in Mumbai. 

Reinventing content:

• “I took the risk of stopping the thing which made me popular, and the audience demanded, to give them something I wanted to make. And then eventually they also started liking that,” said Parikh.
• Anshuman Sharma, who creates content related to personal finance and financial literacy, said the audience likes to listen to someone who leads a life that’s similar to theirs.
• Rohit Shroff, Founder and CEO of adtech platform Aflog.in, which helps brands connect with content creators, said it is important that content creators do not fold when the times are tough. 

Funding Alert

Startup: Subko

Amount: $10M

Round: Equity

Startup: Aeria

Amount: $1.8M

Round: Pre-seed

Startup: Just Deliveries

Amount: $1M

Round: Pre-Series A

In-depth

ICYMI: Cashing in on the ‘trash’ opportunity

In India, waste is more than a problem—it’s a billion-dollar opportunity. But behind the scenes, startups face a different challenge.

The country currently generates around 62 million tonnes of waste overall, of which only 30% of the recyclable waste is recycled, a Mordor Intelligence report says, and a majority of it is done by unorganised factions that almost operate as monopolies with little tolerance for intrusion from others.

Woes:

• Despite being a major contributor to India’s pollution woes, the waste management sector raised merely $12 million in 2023 across four deals, as per YourStory data. The climate tech sector, overall, raised $1.2 billion.
• At the bottom of the hierarchy are scrap dealers who employ waste pickers. There’s usually an understanding between the scrap dealers and the private contractors to protect each other’s interests so they can monopolise business in the area.
• A handful of startups YourStory spoke to did report receiving support from local civic bodies and administrative officers, especially, if they could demonstrate strong tech-led solutions.

News & updates

• Tech layoffs: Dell Technologies reduced its workforce as part of a broader initiative to cut costs that included limiting external hiring and employee reorganisation, it said in a filing. As of February 2, 2024, it had nearly 120,000 employees, down from about 126,000 a year earlier.
• Cooling down: Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD reported an 18.6% rise in fourth-quarter profit, its slowest since the first quarter of 2022, as EV sales lost momentum in the world's biggest auto market amid a brutal price war. Net profit totalled 8.67 billion yuan ($1.20 billion) last quarter, with revenue up 15.1% at 180.04 billion yuan ($25 billion).
• Peak wealth: Former US President Donald Trump’s net worth jumped to $6.4 billion after the merger between Digital World Acquisition Corp and Trump Media & Technology Group Corp was officially finalised, according to Bloomberg. For the first time ever, Trump will be listed on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world’s wealthiest 500 people.

Derived from the Tamil word ‘kattumaram’, which type of vessel has a twin hull and was used by the early Austronesian people for seafaring?

Answer: Catamaran.

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