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Zomato’s fast trading unit Blinkit dwarfs its core grocery business in value terms, says Goldman Sachs

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Goldman Sachs said in a report Thursday that Blinkit, the high-speed trading arm of Indian food delivery giant Zomato, is now more helpful than its core food delivery business, based on the bank’s sum-of-the-parts evaluation.

The investment bank puts Blinkit’s estimated value at Rs 119 per share ($1.43), or about $13 billion, while Zomato’s food delivery business is valued at Rs 98 per share. Goldman previously estimated Blinkit’s March 2023 valuation at $2 billion.

The sharp rise in Blinkit’s valuation is resulting from its strong growth potential in India’s fast-growing high-speed trading market. Goldman Sachs forecasts that Blinkit’s gross order value (GOV) will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53% over fiscal years 2024-2027, outperforming the general online grocery market’s projected CAGR of 38% over the identical period.

Zomato acquired Blinkit for just below $600 million in 2022.

The investment bank believes that the Indian fast trading market is poised for growth resulting from several aspects, including a big unorganized food sector, high population density in urban areas and a positive ratio of delivery costs to average order value. This dynamic allowed Blinkit to supply competitive prices and short delivery times, which drove customer adoption of the answer.

High-speed trading, which boomed around the globe in the course of the pandemic, has since weakened in many markets. However, India continues to buck this trend. According to many analysts, India stands out resulting from unique aspects akin to a big unorganized retail sector and favorable demographics coupled with attractive unit economics.

India is poised to maneuver from unorganized retail on to high-speed retail, potentially bypassing the trendy retail phase seen in other countries, HSBC analysts wrote in a note this month. The success of fast trading lies in its ability to mimic the characteristics of traditional kiranas (convenience stores), akin to supporting small but frequent purchases and offering a wide selection of SKUs. Indian kitchens requiring regular restocking and limited cupboard space, proximity to high-speed trade and an expanding product range make it a sexy alternative to each kiranas and modern retail.

Goldman Sachs estimates that the value of the Indian high-speed trading market in the 50 largest cities alone will likely be USD 150 billion in 2023. Despite the presence of well-capitalized competitors akin to Swiggy and Zepto, the bank believes that this market is large enough to accommodate as much as five profitable players by fiscal yr 2030.

The report shows that Blinkit is anticipated to attain EBITDA break-even by June 2024 and generate higher EBITDA margin than Zomato’s food delivery business by fiscal 2030.

The surge in Blinkit’s valuation is more likely to have ramifications for Zepto and Swiggy, that are planning to make their public debuts this yr.

Swiggy, the operator of easy trading platform Instamart, revealed this week that it has received shareholder approval for an initial public offering in which it expects to lift about $1.25 billion. The latest private financing round in early 2022 valued Swiggy at $10.7 billion.

Zepto, backed by StepStone Group and Y Combinator Continuity, can be competing fiercely with each corporations for a slice of India’s high-speed trading market. The Mumbai-based startup was recently on course to attain $1.2 billion in annual sales.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Waymo’s latest round of financing raises its valuation to $45 billion

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Waymo One robotaxi sky harbor terminal phoenix curbside pickup

Waymo recently Closed a $5.6 billion Series C financing round led by parent company Alphabet, joined by a who’s who of Silicon Valley enterprise capital firms. The investment brings Waymo’s overall valuation to over $45 billion, according to Bloomberg News.

Alphabet previously announced in July that it could donate one other $5 billion to Waymo, but didn’t provide details, saying only that it was a “multi-year” commitment. Andreesen Horowitz, Silver Lake, Fidelity, Tiger Global, Perry Creek and T. Rowe Price joined the round. Waymo declined to say how much each had invested.

This is Waymo’s second round of external fundraising and first since its $2.25 billion Series B in 2020, which eventually grew to $3.2 billion. The autonomous vehicle maker says it is going to use the funds to expand into latest cities and further develop its autonomous capabilities for “business applications.”

Waymo is a totally different company now in some respects than when it raised within the last round. At that point, the corporate was still pushing towards autonomous trucking, which it had abandoned.

Instead, the corporate focused almost entirely on robot transport services. The bet paid off. Waymo currently provides industrial robotaxi services in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and is expanding to Austin and Atlanta. It provides paid rides to greater than 100,000 customers every week in its first three markets and offers rides to and from the Phoenix airport. Operates on highways within the Phoenix and San Francisco areas.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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India Posts Notice to Wikipedia Over Bias Concerns

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Wikipedia is facing increasing regulatory pressure in India as local authorities query whether the platform should proceed to enjoy legal protection as a neutral intermediary reasonably than being classified as a publisher.

India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued a notice to Wikipedia on Tuesday questioning the indirect status of the encyclopedia offered to technology platforms in India. The ministry cited concerns about concentrated editorial control and chronic complaints about bias and inaccuracies on the platform.

The notice follows a controversial case before the Delhi High Court, where judges described Wikipedia’s open editing feature as “dangerous” and threatened to suspend its operations in India. The court is hearing a defamation case filed by news agency Asian News International that seeks to discover Wikipedia authors who allegedly characterised the news agency as a “propaganda tool” of the Indian government.

Justice Navin Chawla rejected Wikipedia’s request for added time to respond due to Wikipedia’s lack of physical presence in India, warning of contempt proceedings against the platform if it fails to comply with the order to disclose user information. “If you don’t want to comply with Indian laws, don’t do business in India,” the judge said.

Wikipedia maintains that its volunteer editors must follow established rules on verifiable content and legal guidelines, though this defense is facing increasing scrutiny from Indian authorities concerned concerning the platform’s content moderation practices.

Wikimedia, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nikhil Pahwa, editor of MediaNama and a outstanding voice on technology policy, questioned the legal basis for the federal government’s move, arguing that Indian IT law determines a platform’s status based on features reasonably than the variety of editors.

“You can be a platform with one user/editor or a billion,” he wrote on X.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Coatue raises $1 billion for AI betting

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Philippe Laffont

Coatue Management, a hedge fund that has invested heavily in tech startups throughout the pandemic boom, is raising $1 billion to support artificial intelligence corporations, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

The funds that can contribute to the corporate’s flagship fund will probably be obtained primarily from institutional investors. However, the report shows that wealthy individuals with accounts at brokerage Raymond James and Associates can even spend money on Coatue.

Coatue, which manages nearly $50 billion in assets, invested in greater than 170 VC-backed corporations in 2021, based on PitchBook data. Since then, Coatue has dramatically slowed its pace of investing in startups, supporting only 81 corporations in 2022 and around 30 corporations in 2023.

However, the cross-border investor shouldn’t be done investing in private corporations. According to PitchBook data, in 2024 Coatue supported 29 startups. The company’s latest AI-focused investments include Glean, Scale AI and Skild AI, which is constructing a general-purpose AI robot. Philippe Laffont, founding father of Coatue (pictured above), said they’re particularly enthusiastic about humanoid robots with artificial intelligence-powered brains.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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