Namaste, Sat Sri Akaal, and Salaam. 🫡

Happy Monday, folks!

Today we’re diving into -
- Ola Electric’s $400mn SBI-powered cash infusion,
- Ambani’s dreams with the credit card market,
- And, bike-taxi startup Rapido’s cabbie moves.

Our read time today is 4 minutes and 54 seconds - faster than Shami’s epic comeback. 🏏

Let's dive in. 👇

Market Vibe Check

Ola Electric nabs a $385mn supercharge. 💸

TLDR -
- SBI and Temasek just picked up 7.1% of Ola-E for $385m in cash.
- They’re gonna be spending this on EV manufacturing and in-house battery production.
- Since the govt. called back their FAME subsidy, sales have dropped from 30k/month to 18k/month.

Bijlee bijlee…

Ola Electric is India’s largest and fastest growing electric scooter company - and they’ve just got a $385mn boost to their cash pile.

The backers are SBI (India’s state bank) and Temasek (Singapore’s investment company). They’ve picked up 7.1% of the company - marking it at a $5.4 billion valuation.

Ola is the current king of India’s e-scooter segment with ~30% market share.

They’ve managed to blitz the scene so quickly because of how well they’ve managed to educate their customers.

One would think that the high sticker price of Ola e-bikes would deter India’s price-sensitive buyers, but they’ve done a good job of making people understand that long-term running costs are 20-25% cheaper than those of an ICE/gas-powered scooter.

India’s e-scooter market has been going through some tough times ever since the government called back subsidies.

For a long time, the state had been spending millions to make e-bikes cheap & affordable for the masses. They stopped the subsidies in June, and Ola’s sales have since dropped from 30-32k units/month to 16-18k units/month. Pretty steep, but still up 2.5X from this time last year.

Electric… ⚡

Mukesh Ambani & Reliance get ready for a credit card debut. 💳

TLDR -
- Reliance & SBI are entering the co-branded card market.
- They want to use these cards as a stepping-stone to tap a growing Indian middle class, and it’s a pretty smart strategy.
- There’s no major USP to a Reliance card as of now, but time (and Ambani’s billions) will eventually tell us what explosive market domination is in store.

Keep swiping…

Reliance and SBI are teaming up to launch 2 of their own co-branded credit cards on India’s RuPay network.

There is currently no USP other than the fact that there are some “discounts” on Reliance Retail businesses - AJIO, JioMart, Reliance Trends, etc.

This new interest in credit cards is not unique to Reliance. Tata Group also partnered with HDFC to roll out its own cards, riding on the coattails of the Tata Neu credit cards' success over the past year.

These co-branded cards serve as a conduit for these firms to diversify revenue, leverage customer data, and get a grasp on the pockets of India’s growing middle class. As incomes rise and consumerism becomes “hip”, these offerings will thrive.

But the reason this credit card news is interesting - Ambani has been going for a big financial services push of late.

Jio Financial is a $20bn behemoth with a hand in all sorts of cookie jars (asset/wealth management, advisory services, banking, lending, and now, credit cards).

Time will tell how Reliance’s plans pan out - but news like this is a pretty decent win-win for both customers & companies.

Bike-taxi startup Rapido takes a dip into the cab business. 🚕

TLDR -
- Rapido is entering the cab market with a new focus on AC 4-wheelers.
- They’re also diving into intercity bus booking to try push GMV with these high-ticket rides.
- Their greatest pitfall could be regulation - the laws are still very murky around bike taxis & their safety.

Chiseling at the Uber-Ola duopoly…

Rapido is taking the fight to the big boys - they’re graduating from bikes & auto-rickshaws to AC cabs.

They’ve been beta-testing their service in Hyderabad and have apparently been met from buzzing excitement - who doesn’t love VC-subsidized rides?

They’re also rolling out intercity bus services to boost GMV with high-ticket, recurring rides.

Rapido will be playing catch-up from the get-go because of the nature of this market - biggest bank account wins.

They raised $324mn at a $800m+ valuation and have probably spent a good chunk of it - so this AC cab bet better be a cash cow, or there might be problems.

Vroom…

In other news… ☕

Top UK schools start launching their satellites to woo rich Indians (BBG)

$20 billion Adobe-Figma deal keeps dragging on (TC)

Creditors start lining up at BYJU’s gates (FT)

Saudi sets a Jan 1 deadline for Middle-Eastern companies to move their HQ to Riyadh, or lose out on government contracts (CNBC)

Argentinian Economy Minister threatens to cut fuel exports in the midst of a shortage (BBG)

And that’s the tea the chai for today.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoyed it. Have a mauj-masti filled day.

Lots of ❤️,

Team Cutting Chai