Published: 3/5/2021
Good afternoon, it's Friday and we're done with the first week of March! I think it was around this time last year where I decided to not go into the office any longer and work remote and gosh what a year it has been. News has been a little light yesterday so we're covering Flipkart's plans to SPAC and Questt's seed round.
➡️ Flipkart is looking into the posibility of going public through a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company), though sources say an IPO is more likely. A growing number of Indian startups have been exploring the SPAC route including Grofers so its only time before we actually see one.
➡️ Last month, Indian Renewable energy company ReNew Power agreed to a deal to go public with a blank-check company. Flipkart has been in the news saying they could go public as early as the first half of 2021.
➡️ India has a couple of contenders for the first large IPO of the current crop of unicorns including Flipkart, Zomato, PolicyBazaar and a couple others. Hopefully the IPOs all actually happen this year because it will give the ecosystem exactly what it's been sorely missing- exits.
➡️ And what comes with exits is a bunch of positive things for the ecosystem- recylcing of capital (to LPs and GPs), recycling of talent which leads to other companies scaling up faster and folks starting companies for the 2nd or 3rd time around.
2. http://bit.ly/3sLwzU0: Questt raises $1.35M in a seed round led by Chiratae
➡️ If I thought the EdTech hypecycle was over, I was sorely wrong- it seems like EdTech of all sizes are still actively raising. And today Questt announced it was raising a $1.35M seed round led by Chiratae Ventures along with Titan Capital and several angels including the Razorpay founder Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar.
➡️ Questt's platform lets teachers assign homework from its own question bank to create digital homework exercises for students in classes 6th to 10th. The company plans to use the capital to expand to all post-KG classes (1-12 I assume) and aims to have 3M students on the platform by the end of the year.
➡️ I wonder if early stage EdTech companies have been so de-risked because of the likes of BYJUs, Unacademy and Vedantu are willing to invest and acquire these companies. On the other hand, I do wonder if many companies can continue staying independent and growing effectively to become a massive edtech company within India themselves.
Feedback & ❤️ always appreciated BONUS (Tweet of the day): https://twitter.com/harshilmathur/status/1367336438476414979
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