Mamaearth parent ramps up strategy; Democratising healthcare via GenAI

Hello,

Ola Electric has hit the ground running.

The EV maker’s stock hit the upper 20% circuit on its stock market debut, despite a modest response to its public offering. The stock, which listed at a flat Rs 76 per share, closed at Rs 91.2 on the NSE, boosting the company's valuation to about $4.8 billion.

Its founder Bhavish Aggarwal also doubled his wealth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, giving the entrepreneur a net worth of $2.3 billion.

The company’s stellar debut is indicative of the bankability of clean energy companies.

Wind and solar energy solutions company Suzlon Energy’s market capitalisation crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark on Friday on the back of the acquisition of a wind turbine manufacturer. 

Moving on, AI may have the same influence Facebook once held in the 2010s.

OpenAI assessed its GPT-4o model to have “medium risk” as its researchers found that some writing samples from GPT-4o could be better at swaying readers’ opinions than human-written text. 

While the mere mention of AI can cause mass hysteria, the technology is increasingly finding newer use cases. 

From JP Morgan Chase rolling out generative AI assistants for employees to help them with tasks like writing emails and reports, ISRO education students using the technology to facilitate innovation in the space sector, to India’s Supreme Court employing it for judicial translation and legal research—AI’s sphere of influence is getting wider.

It’s even helping bring back the dead. AI projects around the world have created digital “resurrections” of individuals who have passed away.

Lastly, we leave you with the story of a Bengaluru woman who became a delivery agent for a day and pointed out areas for improvement on X. It quickly caught the attention of Blinkit's top bosses, who made some improvements to the app.

Now that’s called constructive criticism.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Mamaearth parent ramps up strategy
• Democratising healthcare via GenAI
• Songs of social awareness

Here’s your trivia for today: What sport was reintroduced to the Olympics in 2016 after a 112-year absence?

News

Mamaearth parent ramps up strategy

Mamaearth’s parent company Honasa Consumer Limited is betting big on new-age consumer brands and personal care routines, all while cutting out the middleman to consumers. 

The house of brands clocked a 63% rise in net profit to Rs 40.26 crore in Q1 FY25, compared with Rs 24.7 crore during the comparable period last year, the filings with the BSE showed.

Consumer-centric:

• The company, in the earnings call for the previous fiscal quarter, highlighted its plans to shift from a super stockist distribution model to direct distributors to expedite its omnichannel plans and tap on its multi-brand strategy. 
• It also announced the discontinuation of its Ayurvedic Beauty Products brand Ayuga due to slow traction, and the launch of ‘Skin Renew by Dr. V’—a new premium brand under Derma Co.
• Its skincare product line, The Derma Co, is expected to touch an annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of Rs 1,000 crore in the next 3-5 years, it said in its annual report.

Top Funding Deals of the Week

Startup: Visit Health

Amount: Rs 250 Cr

Round: Equity

Startup: Agrizy

Amount: $9.8M

Round: Series A

Startup: BlueBinaries

Amount: Rs 60 Cr

Round: Equity

Interview

Democratising healthcare via GenAI

Healthcare today is all about data, and GenAI has the computing ability to analyse this information to deliver the services which are more suited to the needs of a community or individual.

In fact, technology can play an invaluable role in not only democratising access to resources that a community or population or an individual needs to thrive but also doing so in a culturally responsive way, believes Danielle Morris, Health Equity Lead, AWS Global Social Impact.

Equitable access:

• Healthcare providers, hospital systems, and governments can use technology to host data to analyse in a way that allows them to understand if there are different needs of patients or certain populations, says Morris.
• She states that Gen AI has a tremendous potential to create efficiencies in healthcare systems, reducing the workload on care providers and hospitals so they spend less time on writing notes and documenting patient outcomes that can be translated easily through Gen AI.
• In 2021, in response to the pandemic, AWS launched its health equity initiative to democratise access to cloud technology for the healthcare sector, subsequently committing an additional $20 million in January this year.

Social Impact

Songs of social awareness

While attending a session on gender, Reshma Arya realised the need to use tools that could make young girls feel comfortable while talking about their bodies, menstrual cycle and other such topics.

This learning and her passion for music soon led her to start WeBhor in 2018, a Delhi-based NGO working towards creating social inclusion and learning through music.

Tunes for thought:

• Through various programmes, WeBhor (We Rise Together) aims to create awareness and educate adolescent girls from marginalised and low-income communities about menstruation, sexual health, rights, and other taboo topics.
• The programme follows four modules which include body anatomy, gender, well-being and mental health, financial literacy, etc.
• So far, the NGO has worked with around 20,000 girls, however, breaking people’s stereotypical mindsets has been the biggest challenge, says Arya.

News & updates

• Unhappy: Spotify and Epic Games are not happy with Apple’s newly revised compliance plan for the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. Spotify called the plan to loosen restrictions along with the addition of two more fees "unacceptable” while Epic Games  called the revisions another case of “malicious compliance” involving “junk fees.”
• Compensation: A US court has ordered the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX to shell out $12.7 billion to compensate customers and fraud victims, five months after its founder was jailed for his role in the collapse of the company.
• Unstable: Moody's downgraded Intel's senior unsecured rating to BAA1 from its earlier A3 rating, citing concerns about the chipmaker's profitability. The downgrade, coupled with a change in outlook to negative, highlighted the pressure on Intel's credit profile in the near term.

What sport was reintroduced to the Olympics in 2016 after a 112-year absence?

Answer: Golf.

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