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In today’s newsletter:

• Midas Touch: How the Big Bull inspired CaratLane founder 
• Jio Financial lists on bourses
• A lookout notice for Rahul Yadav

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CaratLane founder Mithun Sacheti is currently the man of the moment.

Hours after selling his company to Titan, we caught up with him to understand where he is headed next in life, what he plans to do with the money (Rs 4,621 crore, by the way) he has netted and more.

Inspired by ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Sacheti said he is going to give back to the ecosystem as an investor.

• Sacheti said he has a "D2C gene" and will look at consumer companies in the Rs 100-150 crore revenue range
  
  
• He will also continue to be a limited partner in Binny Bansal's 021 Capital and Singularity Ventures

While contemplating setting up his own investment firm, he remains uncertain about this decision.

Titan kept increasing its stake in CaratLane since they first shook hands in 2016. However, the two parties were unable to agree on CaratLane's valuation, which is why it took about seven years to finally close the deal.

“They realised that if they don’t do the deal now, it’ll get too expensive in the future. It was a trade-off for them, either let it get more expensive or close the deal now,” Sacheti told us. 

 Also read: No plans to list CaratLane immediately, says Titan CFO

Sacheti made sure that he wasn’t the only one who got rich after the deal. CaratLane’s other employees also made bank.

• About 75 employees will share a total of Rs 340-380 crore
  
  
• ESOPs account for about 1.72% of CaratLane

Dive deeper

Jio Financial Services (JFS) made its debut on the Indian stock markets today and closed the day’s trading at the lower circuit of 5%.

• The shares closed at Rs 251 on the BSE

However, analysts do not expect the shares to fall significantly because JFS derives its value from owning a 6.1% stake in its parent company, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).

Despite a drop in its share price today, JFS is the largest NBFC in India after the Bajaj twins (Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv), with a market cap of Rs 1.66 lakh crore.

• This makes it bigger than mid-size banks such as IndusInd Bank

Given the RIL group's history of executing large-scale businesses such as retail and telecom, and becoming market leaders, it is likely that JFS shares will rise in the long-term. 

JFS could potentially build a large financial services play by tapping into the reach, customer penetration, and resources of the group's retail and telecom businesses.

Let's put the numbers in perspective here:

• Reliance Retail had over 25 crore customers and 78 crore footfalls in the last fiscal

• It has over 18,000 retail outlets, as well as several e-commerce channels, including JioMart, Urban Ladder, Zivame, Ajio, and Reliance Digital

• Jio Telecom, with over 44 crore customers, has the potential to help JFS make huge strides in mobile payments

JFS is likely to offer financial products to Reliance Retail customers at their offline outlets.

• However, this is unlikely to harm the existing business of fintechs. 

The entry of JFS could also renew investor interest in fintech firms.

• JFS also plans to enter the payment gateway (PG) and UPI payments market, in addition to aggressively pursuing the payments bank business

• JFS can acquire RIL group’s PG business, but it will be difficult to attract UPI customers from PhonePe and Google Pay

Although JFS plans to sell investment products and insurance, the market penetration is low, and it could create a new market rather than changing the existing market dynamics.

Disclosure: Moneycontrol is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.

The troubles for the infamous Rahul Yadav and 4B Networks continue, with a lookout notice now issued in his name.

How come? An ad agency that rendered services to the startup has filed a complaint stating that 4B Networks owes it Rs 10 crore.

A first information report (FIR) was registered by the Mumbai police against Rahul Yadav and Sanjay Sahni, two of 4B Networks' founding members, after a complaint was filed by Vikas Om Prakas Nowal of Interspace Communication.

• The charges in the FIR include criminal breach of trust and cheating

Yadav required no introduction following his association with Housing.com. However, the challenges with 4B Networks became evident when Info Edge wrote down its complete investment in the venture.

• A forensic audit was initiated after Yadav and the company failed to provide details that Info Edge says it was contractually obligated to receive

Yadav did not provide any details even for the forensic audit, following which the investor approached the Delhi High Court. The two parties are now in arbitration.

Find out more

• Academic journals are scrambling with authors using generative AI in scientific writing without any disclosures. There's no foolproof way to catch it all yet.
  
  
• UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to spend up to $130 million of taxpayer money to buy thousands of AI chips amid a global race for computing power.

In today's world, where our every move is being tracked and monitored, it's more important than ever to protect our privacy. One of the best ways to do this is to use a VPN.

A VPN, or virtual private network, encrypts your traffic and routes it through a server in another location. This makes it much more difficult for anyone to track your online activity.

There are many different VPNs available, but here are a few of the best:

• ExpressVPN
• NordVPN
• Surfshark
• Windscribe
• Proton VPN

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