🔴 Red light, 🟢 Green light
Mark Zuckerberg's $6 billion loss, Netflix's new smash hit, India's second crypto unicorn and some more updates.
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First up,
Market Recap 📈
Indian benchmark indices closed 1% higher on Thursday, led by growth in realty and metal stocks. Meanwhile, US stocks also advanced gains as lawmakers neared a deal to temporarily stave off a government default by mid-month.
Sensex: 59,677.83 (+0.82%) ↑
Nifty 50: 17,790.35 (+0.82%) ↑
Dow Jones: 34,416.99 (+0.30%) ↑
Nasdaq 100: 14,766.75 (+0.63%) ↑
Bitcoin: $54.048.37
Top Stories 📰
1. Facebook, what's going on? 📱
It's been a bad week for Facebook, especially for its founder Mark Zuckerberg.
The social media giant and its family of apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, suffered a six-hour-long global outage, sending its users into complete chaos.
Facebook attributed the outage to configuration changes made to its routers. But the change came with a price: Facebook lost $99.75 million in revenue by the number of inactive hours of advertising, Fortune reported. Additionally, the company's shares also fell around 5%.
Not a first: In its 17-year history, Facebook has suffered two massive global outages. Back in 2008, the company's website was knocked offline for 24 hours by a bug that affected over 80 million users. In 2019, Facebook experienced a second—and its worst outage ever—when a server configuration change took its services offline.
The outage comes amid a whistleblower complaint by a former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, who revealed that the company lied to its investors about how it dealt with hate speech, violence, and misinformation. Haugen, who also worked with the Wall Street Journal to publish their series called 'The Facebook Files,' also accused the company of harming children and weakening democracy.
The global outage, along with Haugen's testimony before Congress, sent CEO Mark Zuckerberg's fortune to nosedive over $6 billion.
Why it matters? Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are not just social platforms; they're essentially marketplaces for millions of online creators and local businesses whose revenues were severely affected by the outage.
2. Squid Game is killin it 🐙
Squid Game, a show that once forced its creator to sell his laptop for money, has now turned into Netflix's new surprise hit. The Korean drama-slash-horror series has now become a popular meme on social media platforms and could become Netflix’s most popular original series ever, says Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos.
What's it about? The nine-episode series consists of 456 people who face severe debt and financial crisis and compete against each other in a lethal children's game to win the $38 million cash prize. However, there's a teeny-tiny catch: if you lose, you die.
Barely three weeks since its release in September 2017, the show is already on track to surpass Bridgerton—the most popular show in Netflix history.
More Squid facts:
Since its release, the demand for the show rose 481%.
On TikTok, #squidgame has around 27 billion views—including the recipe for dalgona candy.
Squid Games has over 102.9 times more global demand than any average show as of October 2.
Due to its skyrocketing popularity, Squid Game has been subtitled in 31 different languages, dubbed in 13, and is now the top show on the streaming platform in over 90 countries. Interestingly, around 95% of the viewership is outside South Korea.
Why it matters? This kind of growth is quite rare for Netflix original series, which usually peaks 2-4 days after release. The show's global success also drove up Netflix's stocks by 5.2% to close at $634.81, reassuring investors that the streaming giant can still produce hits and grow its subscriber base.
Deal Street 🤑
CoinSwitch Kuber becomes India's second crypto unicorn
Bengaluru-based crypto firm CoinSwitch Kuber has raised more than $260 million in its Series C funding round led by Coinbase Ventures and Andreesen Horowitz's VC firm a16z. The latest round values the company at $1.9 billion, making it India's second crypto unicorn after CoinDCX raised its Series C funding round in August. The crypto exchange, founded in 2017, began operating as a global aggregator of cryptocurrency exchanges, aimed at simplifying crypto investing and online food ordering. CoinSwitch has around 10 million users and has reported nearly $50 million in annual revenues. The fresh capital will be used for expanding its userbase and hiring new talent. It's also planning to launch a new ecosystem fund, focused on investing in other crypto and blockchain companies in India.
Rebel Foods raises $175 million
Indian cloud kitchen startup Rebel Foods has successfully raised its $175 million Series F funding round at a $1.4 billion valuation, becoming India's 31st unicorn startup this year. The funding round was led by sovereign fund Qatar Investment Authority and existing investors such as Coatue and Evolvence. Rebel Foods operates a network of dark kitchens—restaurants that make food serving operations more economical—including companies like Ovenstory Pizza, Faasos, and Behrouz Biryani, among others. The 2011-founded firm has built over 45 brands (own + partners) across ten nations and operates more than 4000 internet restaurants. Currently, the company has an annual run rate of $150 million. It plans to use the fresh capital for exploring acquisition opportunities and expanding its international footprint.
Tweet Of The Week ✨
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