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In today’s newsletter:

• Rajeev Chandrasekhar likely to meet Sam Altman to discuss AI
• No new unicorns in eight months
• Byju's Aakash to go public next year

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The chief of the buzziest artificial intelligence (AI) company couldn't have chosen a better time to visit India.

Sam Altman, the founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, is likely to meet with Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on June 8, according to sources.

• Altman's visit to India comes as the government is finalising a new law that will govern the internet, including AI
  
  
• The OpenAI chief has been on a whirlwind tour of the world, meeting with top government officials in London, Paris, Brussels, and Tel Aviv

After asking the US to regulate AI, Altman has gone a step further and suggested the creation of an international authority to track compute resources of countries and regulate the development of advanced AI.

• Last month, Chandrashekhar hinted that India might have a different view on the matter and plans to frame regulations with the goal of preventing user harm

In an interview with us, Zerodha chief technology officer Kailash Nadh said that OpenAI has a huge conflict of interest in calling for heavy regulation, as it would help the company keep competition at bay.

• Nadh also said that it was not possible to track the build-up of AI computing power by a country or non-state actors, in contrast to technologies like nuclear power or cloning of humans

It has been a while since India has seen a new unicorn. To be more precise, there has not been a new unicorn since September last year.

So where are all the soonicorns, or startups that are on track to become unicorns?

• Investors and bankers believe they will be late to the party, suggesting that the unicorn drought will last longer.

There are as many as 50 “soonicorns” in India, or startups valued between $500 million and $1 billion. However, industry observers believe that none of these startups are likely to become unicorns anytime soon.

In fact, SoftBank, an investor that typically invests at later stages and at aggressive valuations, is also considering non-unicorn rounds, according to industry insiders.

A prolonged funding winter, caused by a deteriorating macroeconomic environment, has kept most investors away from India's startup ecosystem.

Furthermore, several horrible fiascos in the past year, including the most recent one where Info Edge initiated a forensic audit into Rahul Yadav's 4B Networks, have led investors to demand stricter due diligence.

This has further delayed funding rounds, while also prompting investors to reevaluate investment metrics, resulting in more rational valuations, according to industry observers.

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The season of Byju's making regular headlines is back.

Just last week, the world's most valuable edtech company faced a setback when its lenders scrapped negotiation talks. Today, it announced that its tutoring services unit, Aakash Educational Services, will go public.

• The announcement comes on the day that Byju's is due to make a quarterly interest payment of $40 million on a loan that it raised in November 2021.

The IPO is expected to launch in mid-2024, much later than its previous plan of taking Aakash public in June 2023

• Byju's also said that Aakash is on track to generate revenue of Rs 4,000 crore and an operating profit of Rs 900 crore in FY24

Byju's began preliminary discussions with investment banks in November 2022 to take Aakash public in the first quarter of FY24. The company hired Goldman Sachs and Citibank as advisers for the IPO.

In March 2023, Citigroup estimated that the Aakash IPO could value the business at $3.2-$3.5 billion.

• The report also said that Aakash had a revenue of Rs 1,459 crore in FY22 and an EBITDA of Rs 227 crore. The report expected these figures to grow to Rs 2,553 crore and Rs 646 crore, respectively, in FY23
  
  
• Aakash and Byju's have not yet filed financial results for the previous two fiscal years

Go deeper

On June 5, 1977, the Apple II computer went on sale. It was an 8-bit home computer and one of the earliest microcomputer products to achieve significant success in terms of mass production.

The base price of the computer was $1,298. It featured a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor operating at 1 MHz, 4 kB of RAM, and an audio cassette interface for loading programs and storing data.

• Crypto influencers are being more careful with endorsement deals after the FTX collapse, which led to lawsuits against celebrities involved in its promotion.
  
  
• Atomic Wallet said that the recent hack that resulted in a loss of $35 million only affected less than 1% of its monthly active users.

A spyware disguised as a popular mini-game module on Android has been discovered, putting millions of users at risk. 

This malicious software, known as Android.Spy.SpinOk, secretly collects sensitive data from mobile devices and transfers it to cybercriminals. 

Shockingly, it has been found embedded in 101 apps with over 420 million downloads.

Find out more

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