One important thing: Ather Energy is charting ambitious plans to become India's biggest EV maker. 

The electric two-wheeler maker not only inaugurated a new plant in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, that can produce around 4.20 lakh EVs per year but is also in the final stages of finalising a deal to establish another plant with a capacity of a million vehicles per year.

This expansion comes as the Bengaluru-based startup is benefiting from increased EV adoption, attractive international markets, easing semiconductor shortages, and improved raw material sourcing techniques.

In today’s newsletter: 

• Prosus' new value for Byju’s
• Why Tiger Global loves India
• Chai Point wants to be like Oyo

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In the funding winter for tech, valuations are facing more heat than ever. 

In the latest instance, tech investor Prosus has made an accounting entry in its books that effectively values Byju's at $5.97 billion — a far cry from the $22 billion valuation it commanded in its most recent funding round.

After selling a small portion of its stake, Prosus is no longer a controlling shareholder in Byju's. As a result of changes in accounting practices, Prosus valued its stake in Byju's at $578 million.

• The investor said that macroeconomic headwinds and tech sector valuations had influenced the arithmetic for Byju's

• In its 2022 annual report, Prosus said that it had invested a total of $536 million in Byju's since 2018

Byju’s faced a lot of flak earlier for unusual accounting practices and delays in reporting its audited financials for FY21. Byju Raveendran, the edtech's CEO, said in September that investors don't care when FY22 results are filed. 

But, at least one investor does. Here’s what Prosus told us:

"The provision of Byju’s audited financials did not align with the timing of the close of our financial reporting periods, so we did not have sufficient information to make fair assumptions for our Group’s financial statements."

While Prosus did not have enough information about Byju's financial performance when it closed its report for the period, it did provide an overview of two of its other major portfolio companies in India.

• Swiggy's restaurant food delivery sales stood at $1.3 billion in H1, while quick commerce sales were at $257 million

• PayU India's revenues increased 38 percent year on year to $183 million in the first half of fiscal year 2022-23, owing to increased digitisation

In India, a tiger is roaring! But we're not talking about the country's national animal here, instead, we are referring to one of the world's largest investment firms, which is expressing confidence in the country's startup ecosystem.

Tiger Global Management, one of India's most aggressive private market investors, sees the country's startup ecosystem as a "silver lining", particularly at a time when tech valuations are falling elsewhere.

• Tiger Global's private investment head, Scott Shleifer, visited India earlier this week to meet with portfolio startups and early-stage investors to explore new investments, particularly at the early stages
  
  
• He sounded extremely bullish on internet companies, particularly those in its private portfolio in India
  
  
• He also said that Tiger Global's private investments in India are performing exceptionally well and serve as a cushion for the company's public portfolio in the country
  
  
• The Indian startup ecosystem is expected to be a 'big beneficiary' of Tiger Global's proposed $6 billion fund

In addition, sources tell us that Deep Verma, head of finance at Tiger Global, and Griffin Schroeder, head of consumer internet investing at Tiger Global, will travel to India next week to meet with investors and top startup executives.

Tiger Global's optimism about the country's startup ecosystem provides a ray of hope for Indian startups that are currently struggling due to the much-discussed funding winter.

• Many startups, including well-funded unicorns, have slashed thousands of jobs in anticipation of a longer funding winter

• Large investors like SoftBank have cut investments amid a tech rout

Also Read: Tiger Global’s Series A bets in India up 3x as early-stage funding gathers momentum

...for chai. At least, that is the vision of tea chain Chai Point co-founder Amuleek Singh Bijral, who wants to do more than just sell tea and snacks through its retail outlets. Chai Point also intends to go public within the next 18-24 months.

Apart from stores selling tea, coffee, packaged goods, and food (another area where Chai Point claims to be doing well), it has shifted its focus to brewing machines and systems. Aside from machines in offices, it is now looking to distribute them to third parties who want to set up their own outlets.

• How does this work? It leases the machine and software to third parties and gives them a separate branding, and the consumables are procured through Chai Point
  
  
• Chai Point says that its brewing systems even remember a person's preferences, such as how much milk, sugar, and tea to use, how long to brew, and so on
  
  
• Why this route? Bijral claims that this allows them to expand their footprint far beyond what they could with their own retail stores

Although there are competitors in various lines of offerings, according to Bijral, there is no single comprehensive player. When it comes to adding brewing machines to offices, Cafe Coffee Day and Lavazza are old players, whereas in retail spaces it competes with Chaayos, Starbucks, and others.

He believes that these brewing systems will help them scale.

Go deeper

At COMDEX in Las Vegas on November 23, 1992, IBM unveiled the first smartphone Simon Personal Communicator (simply known as IBM Simon). Simon Personal Communicator was a touchscreen-equipped handheld cellphone.

Despite the fact that the term "smartphone" was not coined until 1995, Simon is widely considered to be the first true smartphone due to its features and capabilities. (Picture credit: Wikipedia)

• New York has become the first US state to temporarily ban the issuance of new permits for fossil fuel plants that power the energy-intensive activity of cryptocurrency mining. The new law places a two-year moratorium on coal plants that host proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining and seeks to "balance economic development and climate goals." 
  
  
• Crypto investment platform CoinSwitch has launched CoinSwitch Pro, a marketplace of exchanges, becoming the first rupee-powered crypto platform to allow multi-exchange trading with a single login. The startup plans to launch its first non-crypto offering by the end of March 2023.
  
  
• FTX was run as a "personal fiefdom" of former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, attorneys for the defunct crypto exchange said in its first bankruptcy hearing as they detailed ongoing problems like hacks and substantial missing assets.
  
  
• Indian crypto entrepreneurs said they are implementing measures to provide full transparency on their reserve funds to win back investor confidence after the collapse of FTX, the world’s third-largest crypto exchange by trading volumes.

Fusion foods are quite a trend across the world, but have you seen fusion sports? 

Teqvoly is a sport that combines volleyball and table tennis and is played on a curved table by two teams of two players each.

And the rallies can get quite intense… Check it out.

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