India’s love for short videos; Bounce on path to profitability

Hello,

What do you call an ex-unicorn? 

A recent transition towards a direct distribution model and a muted demand for Mamaearth has cost Honasa Consumer its unicorn status. 

Honasa Consumer’s shares fell about 29% across sessions since its close last week, despite the company clarifying that its distribution value chain carried a total inventory of Rs 40.69 crore, against the quoted figure of Rs 300 crore of near-expiry inventory by the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation, 

At market close on Thursday, the company’s shares were trading at Rs 237.40 apiece, down 9.99%, tanking the company's total market cap to Rs 7,721 crore (roughly $902 million) from its IPO valuation of Rs 10,500 crore. 

It wasn’t a bright day for Gautam Adani, either. 

Adani Group companies lost about $27 billion in market value after Adani and a few others were indicted on alleged bribery and fraud charges by US prosecutors to win solar power plant contracts, expected to yield $2 billion of profit over 20 years. 

Adani Enterprises closed down 23% in its worst single-day drop since February 2023, although Adani Group denied the allegations as “baseless”. It added that it would seek “all possible legal recourse”.

But there was more bad news. Kenyan President William Ruto cancelled certain Adani contracts in the first major business fallout after the indictment.

ICYMI: All that happened in the Adani case. 

Lastly, meet the new entrant to LinkedIn–Varun Dhawan!

The Bollywood actor took to the professional networking social media platform and said he wanted to connect with professionals beyond just the entertainment industry. 

As they say, there’s no age to learn new things!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• India’s love for short video
• Bounce on path to profitability
• Driving diversity in entrepreneurship

Here’s your trivia for today: What Christmas single has the biggest sales of all time?

Internet

India’s love for short videos

India’s short-form video market has grown 3.6 times in daily users since 2020, thanks to its reach in smaller cities and better content, according to Redseer Strategy Consultants.

Scroll:

• Mukesh Kumar, Associate Partner at Redseer Strategy Consultants, believes India's digital advertising market is projected to nearly double by FY29 to reach $16–17 billion, with video advertising leading the way as the fastest-growing ad format.
• More than 50% of short-form video users are monetisable, the report noted. The discretionary spending of these users is often directed toward ecommerce, OTT, in-app purchases, and paid gaming services.
• Currently, over 63% of the short-form video engagement is coming from Tier II+ regions, with platforms like Josh and Moj tailoring content for local languages and preferences.

<Funding Alert>

Startup: Zopper

Amount: $25M

Round: Series D

Startup: CredFlow

Amount: $3.7M

Round: Pre-Series B

Startup: O4H

Amount: Rs 1 Cr

Round: Seed

Interview

Bounce CEO outlines path to profitability

After multiple pivots, Bounce entered the EV ecosystem in 2021 and has since managed to significantly narrow its net losses consecutively until FY23. The company is yet to file its FY24 results, but according to Vivekananda Hallekere, CEO and Co-founder of Bounce, it turned EBIT positive in September for the first time and is on track to clock in Rs 100 crore in revenue in FY25. 

Growing business:

• The company started its journey in 2014 as a premium bike rental company that offered two-wheelers across a range of brands from Harley Davidson to Ducati. It later became a scooter rental platform in 2016.
• According to Hallekere, the company is the only Indian OEM today that has been able to integrate with battery-swapping operators. 
• While Bounce operates in the B2C segment, it also focuses on B2B use cases. “In the last two quarters, we worked closely with logistics companies and quick commerce companies,” Hallekere added.

Women entrepreneur

Driving diversity in entrepreneurship

Avneet Kohli is the co-founder of Encubay, a global startup and angel platform that aims to drive diversity in entrepreneurship and investing.

Over the past four years, Kohli and Co-founder Deeksha Ahuja conceptualised six IPs or properties. The most popular is the Power Circle—a safe space for women to share ideas, network, and meet peers in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Dubai.

Connecting:

• As part of Encubay Global Immersion Week, it also hosts SoarUp, a pitch competition for startups to showcase what they are building to potential investors. 
• Other initiatives include Fempreneurs—a scaling-up and business acceleration programme led by industry experts; FounderFounder—where women ace their pitch and build relationships with investors over casual cocktails, canapes, and conversations, and Women in Emerging Tech, which helps women upskill.
• In the future, Encubay wants to strengthen its presence in the UAE market, in terms of engagement and investors, including scaling and building structure systems. 

News & updates

• Chrome: The US Justice Department argued that Google should divest its Chrome browser as part of a remedy to break up the company’s illegal monopoly in online search. If the DOJ’s proposed remedy is approved, Google would not be allowed to re-enter the search market for five years.
• Unsubscribe: WhatsApp is testing new ways for users to provide feedback to WhatsApp Businesses about what kind of messages they would want to receive—or not receive. This involves buttons like “interested/not interested” and “stop/resume” for some specific categories of messages. 
• AI: Nvidia said its latest generation of chips, known as Blackwell, launched earlier this year, is in “great shape”, as the world’s most valuable company reported another strong quarter of revenue growth, thanks to high demand for the infrastructure that has underpinned the artificial intelligence boom.

What Christmas single has the biggest sales of all time?

Answer: White Christmas by Bing Crosby, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.

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