🤝 Helping cos make the right acquisitions; Go Digit’s IPO and insurtech’s failed disruption

The most interesting news selected specially for you! 02 June 2024 [View in Browser]( POWERED BY Hello, Now, startups and enterprises can enhance their brand engagement by partnering with YourStory and advertising on our YS Buzz and Weekly Wrap newsletters. [Click here]( to know more. In today's newsletter, we will talk about: - Helping cos make the right acquisitions - Go Digit’s IPO and insurtech’s failed disruption - Shark Tank India alumni on life post-show - Awfis IPO subscribed 109 times - Kani Kusruti on her film’s Cannes win Here’s your trivia for today: Which European town inspired Vincent van Gogh's famous “Starry Night”? --------------------------------------------------------------- Startup Helping cos make the right acquisitions news cycles about startups raising millions in funding can give any entrepreneur FOMO. However, the reality is different. Many startups do not gather enough funds and some of them look towards mergers and acquisitions. Pune-based GrowthPal, an M&A deal-sourcing platform, facilitates small and mid-size M&A transactions for startups. Key takeaways: - GrowthPal has secured $1.4 million in funding from Ideaspring Capitaland prominent angel investors including Anand Deshpande from Persistent, and Mukul Kumar from Pubmatic. - In the past three years, the 30-member team has built over 150 curated M&A pipelines. - The company has sourced two deals for payment processing firm Razorpay, including risk tech SaaS firm TERA Finlabs, and seven deals for roll-up ecommerce startup GOAT Brand Labs. [Read More]( --------------------------------------------------------------- From the CapTable Go Digit’s IPO mirrors the underwhelming reality of insurtech disruption Founded in 2016, Go Digit is India’s earliest insurtech company. However, despite elbowing its way into the ranks of India’s leading general insurers (it is also the fastest-growing), its IPO on May 23 flattered to deceive. The company’s stock debuted at just a 5% premium to its listing price on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). This is despite the company turning profitable in FY23 and being backed by the Fairfax Group and an insurance veteran. Indeed, Go Digit’s IPO, which was meant to signal the coming-of-age of India’s insurtech space, may have inadvertently highlighted the space’s shortcomings instead. Go Digit’s own anticlimactic outcome likely stems from concerns around the sustainable profitability of the company’s largest segment—motor insurance. While the company has been wildly successful at scaling this segment, doing so while maintaining low claims and improving return ratios—the rate at which customers renew policies—remains a significant challenge.Worries about sustainability aren’t limited to Go Digit, with many of its full-stack insurtech peers facing similar significant business sustainability challenges. The opacity surrounding their operations doesn’t help matters. With traditional insurers and insurtechs increasingly difficult to tell apart, will insurtechs really make the difference in insurance penetration that their legacy peers failed to manage? Key takeaways: - Insurtech unicorn Go Digit went public last week. Despite being profitable and helmed by an insurance veteran, however, the listing was underwhelmingOTP Ventures, which plans to invest in consumer brands and fintech startups, has already made four investment commitments through the fund. - This anticlimax likely stems from doubts about the sustainability of the company’s future profitability. Go Digit’s case mirrors the wider insurtech space. - While insurtech startups talked a big game about disruption, many now look increasingly like traditional insurance players, albeit in a shiny tech wrapper. - And with their offerings and practices largely mimicking those of traditional insurance players, startups haven’t solved for the biggest challenge in the space—trust [Continue Reading]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Brands of India Shark Tank India alumni on life post-show For several brands that appeared on the latest season of Shark Tank India, life after their episode aired has been far from rosy. With Shark Tank India producer Sony Pictures Networks India serving legal notices and striking down ads that used snippets from the episodes, many brands say their appearance has hurt sales. What happened: - Organic diaper maker Allter's Surbhi Bafna, when asked whether her brand got a buzz she saw after her episode aired, said, "What buzz?". - Bafna noted that after being featured on TV, distributors and retailers who had, at one point, refused to acknowledge or work with her company, now thought of Allter as a credible brand. - Clothing and accessories startup Turms Founder Surender S Rajpurohi noted that after the episode featuring his startup aired, the website did see a lot of traction and sales ballooned, but only for certain SKUs (stock-keeping units). [Read More]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Corporate Awfis IPO subscribed 109 times Space Solutions' IPO saw an overwhelming response, with its shares subscribed 108.56 times the issue on the last day of bidding. The IPO, which had a size of Rs 598.93 crore, received bids of 93.68 crore shares against Awfis' offer of 0.86 crore shares. Key takeaways: - The bids from the NII segment were 130 times its allotment share while for the QIB segment, it was 116 times. The retail segment received bids 55 times the issue size. - Awfis priced its IPO in the range of Rs 364-383 per share and offered a mix of a fresh issue of equity shares and an offer for sale. Ahead of the IPO, it raised Rs 268.62 crore from anchor investors - Awfis plans to use the funds raised to expand its managed aggregation model, improve customer services, and expand into new markets, including Tier I and II cities. [Read More]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Celebrity Kani Kusruti on her film’s Cannes win the recently concluded 77th edition of Festival De Cannes, filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light—starring Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha—won the Grand Prix. Premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, the film received an eight-minute standing ovation from the audience. “It all feels so surreal. I did not expect such a long-standing ovation. It felt very overwhelming,” Kusruti tells HerStory. Limelight: - Kusruti, an actress and model from Kerala, comes from a solid theatre background, having completed her theatre education at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. - She began getting noticed after appearing in the anthology film Kerala Café, and went on to essay roles in mainstream movies such as Shikkar and Cocktail. She became popular after her role as Teresa in the Malayalam series Eswaran Sakshiyayi. - Kusruti carried a clutch in a watermelon design on the red carpet at Cannes; the watermelon slice is a symbol of Palestinian resistance. [Read More]( --------------------------------------------------------------- News & Updates - [New home:]( Two teams of scientists have discovered a theoretically habitable planet, smaller than Earth but bigger than Venus, orbiting a small star about 40 light-years away. The exoplanet, named Gliese 12b, orbits a cool red dwarf star situated in the constellation Pisces and is about 27% the size of our sun and 60% of its temperature. - [Intervention:]( Data from Japan’s Ministry of Finance confirmed the country’s first currency intervention since 2022 after the yen plunged to a 34-year low in April. The Ministry stated Japan spent 9.7885 trillion yen ($62.25 billion) on currency intervention between April 26 and May 29. - [Record-breaking:]( Sony Music is reportedly in talks to buy the music catalogue of the rock band Queen, including hits like Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, and Another One Bites The Dust. Sony is reportedly working with another investor on the transaction, which “could potentially total $1 billion”. Did you know? Which European town inspired Vincent van Gogh's famous “Starry Night”? Answer: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France We would love to hear from you! 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