🤔 who owns Web3?
Billionaires beef over Web3, Zee and Sony sign merger deal, Razorpay raises Series F and more updates.
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First up,
Market Recap 📈
Indian benchmark indices closed higher as Omicron variant concerns seemed to subside, while US stocks and futures rose on similar investor optimism.
Sensex: 57,315.28 (+0.68%) ↑
Nifty 50: 17,072.60 (+0.69%) ↑
Dow Jones: 35,753.89 (+0.74%) ↑
Nasdaq 100: 16,180.14 (+1.21%) ↑
Bitcoin: $44,475.89
Top Stories 📰
1. Media firms stay mergin'
Just a week after the Vox-Group Nine merger, Japanese conglomerate Sony's Indian arm has decided to merge with Zee Entertainment, further solidifying the media consolidation trend.
The resulting company would be India's second-largest entertainment network, with
over 75 television channels
two streaming platforms (ZEE5 and Sony LIV)
two film studios (Zee Studios and Sony Pictures Films India)
a digital content studio (Studio NXT), and other assets.
Sony will hold 51% in the new entity, with Zee's promoter family owning 3.99% and an option to increase their ownership upto 20% from the market. MD and CEO Punit Goenka will take on the CEO role, while the deal will take around 8-10 months to close subject to approval from Invesco, which owns a 17.88% stake in Zee.
Invesco had earlier filed litigation against Zee promoters in Bombay High Court and the National Company Law Tribunal, citing the need for 'clarity' on how the group would increase its stake in the merged entity. It also called for an emergency general meeting to remove Goenka from Zee's board, which it declined. While the matter's still ongoing in court, Invesco seems to be losing its leverage.
Why it matters? India has over 900 million TV viewers and more than 800 channels. But due to the recent surge in streaming platforms like Netflix, Hotstar, and Amazon Prime Video, the TV viewership has seen some sharp attrition as audiences switch from direct-to-home TV entertainment to streaming services. This new merger is only expected to further intensify the streaming war.
2. Billionaires argue over Web3 ownership
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has some spicy takes on crypto and Web3, and he's not afraid to share it with the world.
Web3, the much-discussed blockchain-based, decentralized technology designed to replace today's internet, has garnered much attention this year. Consequently, entrepreneurs and companies all around the globe are shifting their resources towards creating Dapps.
And Dorsey had something to say about this trend:
The tweet received considerable criticism from the Web3 community, who mostly disagreed with his take, calling it "highly disagreeable" and “dead wrong.”
And thus began the discourse regarding the ownership of Web3, which was later joined by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had similar concerns. "It’s somewhere between a and z,” responded Dorsey. It was this, along with a series of his other anti-Web3 tweets, that supposedly made eminent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen unfollow him.
The move prompted another quip from Dorsey, who tweeted that he's "officially banned from Web3," a stance highly disputed by Twitter users who said that a16z doesn't control Web3.
But Dorsey didn't stop there. When Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and vocal Web3 advocate, tweeted about the anti-Web3 stance, Dorsey said this:
Why it matters? While Dorsey is a huge proponent of Bitcoin, he doesn't believe that Web3 is truly game-changing or that it allows users to "own" anything. But, he's quite bullish on Bitcoin's unique ownership structure, which makes it reassuring to be among the top 1%—something that you can't say about the dollar.
Deal Street 🤑
Zepto raises Series C
Mumbai-based grocery delivery startup Zepto has raised a $100 million Series C funding round at a $570 million valuation. Led by Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, the round was participated by Lachy Groom, Breyer Capital, Nexus, Glade Brook, and others. Founded five months ago by two Stanford dropouts, Zepto (formerly KiranaKart) enables customers to order groceries from high-quality stores and delivers them within 10 minutes. The startup has onboarded 100K+ new installs weekly and has operations in Pune, Mumbai, Gurugram, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore. It's planning to capitalize on India's last-mile delivery economy that's expected to reach around $7 billion by 2024. The fresh capital infusion will go towards hiring as the startup aims to expand its operations in multiple cities.
Razorpay secures $375 million in Series F
From $3 billion in April to $7.5 billion today, Razorpay has consistently shown its perseverance for India's fintech crown. The Bangalore-based startup has now raised a $375 million Series F funding round led by TCV, Lone Pine Capital, and Alkeon Capital. Existing participants like Sequoia Capital India, Tiger Global, Y Combinator and GIC participated in the round. Razorpay operates like a neobank, accepting, processing and disbursing money to small businesses and enterprises. As of December 2021, it has over $60 billion in total payment volume (TPV) and hopes to boost this number to $90 billion by next year. With the latest fundraise, Razorpay aims to become a full-stack financial solution firm and scale Razorpay, its banking business suite, to provide banking services.
Tweet Of The Week ✨
*brb, having Jurassic Park flashbacks* 😳
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