Published: 7/21/2020
Good morning, it's Tuesday and Vedica's latest piece on Jio is dropping in the next hour. In other news, there's a plant-based meat startup launching in India (I have a hot take on this) and what might be India's first IPO.
➡️ Bollywood couple Genelia and Riteish Deshmukh have launched their latest business venture, Imagine Meats, focused on plant-based meat products. The company will launch various products, suited for the Indian palate and is partnering with global ingredients manufacturers.
➡️ "Clean" meat, meat products & dairy-alternatives have been a huge trend in the United States with consumers want to eat healthier and purchase products that might have some ethical significance to them.
➡️ My take on plant-based meat products is that it's a product largely meant for traditional meat eaters, and a large percentage of Americans consume meat so there's a large population that might want the the texture & flavor of meat without the slaughtering of Animals.
➡️ But in India, the percentage of meat-eaters is significantly lesser than America (it's still a significant percentage) but I'm not sure they will take to eating plant-based products because I don't think Indian consumers think of the ethical implications as much.
➡️ This is also a product only for rich Indians living in Tier 1 cities so I think the number of folks who might actually purchase these products isn't significantly high. On the other hand, with Genelia & Ritesh founding the company, they have immediate marketing through their social channels, which might help them out in the early days.
2. https://bit.ly/39fVeHT: Policybazaar aims for 2021 IPO in India tech’s debut
➡️ In what might be India's first startup IPO, PolicyBazaar aims to go public in 2021 at a valuation >$3.5B sometime in 2021. The company is currently selecting a couple of underwriters to lead the IPO process.
➡️ The company also plans to raise around $250M in a round of financing at a $2B valuation before their IPO and it will be interesting to see who they bring on as investors (would assume the large global funds are the prime players).
➡️ The company has raised significant financing over the last decade from the likes of Tiger Global, SoftBank & Tencent and could potentially be the first Indian company to deliver returns to these funds through an IPO.
➡️ The company intends to list in Mumbai and I am actually quite curious to see what Dalal Street thinks of the online insurance aggregator & financial services co, but the company is also open to a dual listing (potentially in the US?) if Indian regulators change their laws.
➡️ There has been a lot of talk of IPOs by Indian unicorns in 2021/2022 but lets see if these actually pan out. Historically speaking, we haven't seen many public exits by Indian startups but it is something the industry certainly needs.
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