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Nandan Nilekani, often rightly touted as India's CTO, recently had this to say about AI and the big-tech's investment in it: "For them, the cost of not spending 50 billion dollars a year is higher than the cost of doing it" The AI race is unfolding at tremendous speed. Need a catch-up of what has happened so far with generative AI? Here's BusinessBar's latest article titled 'Google’s AI Fightback: Bard Blunder to Gemini’s Brilliance', which takes you through the competitive journey of how Microsoft backed OpenAI and Google are playing move after move: https://lnkd.in/dcmAUbZD Or if you are on the go, you may choose to listen to the audio summary of the article below.

OpenAI just announced its $6.6Bn round valuing it at $157Bn, but that may not last it even a year as it is burning over $5Bn a year. Most of its executives including CTO Mina Murati are leaving. There is significant internal turbulence due to its rumored transition to become a conventional for-profit. All this while, Google is quietly building Gemini, and leveraging its Cloud TPU infrastructure and customers to drive enterprise adoption. With 2M context tokens, context caching and the ability to ground models in third-party data, Google is addressing real-life use cases that make a product go from pilot to production. The latest human-reasoning o1 model by OpenAI is a significant step towards the creation of AGI, but it seems that the battle between OpenAI and Google is more complex than simply the one with the better model. And Gemini might just be beating OpenAI when it comes to these complexities. Read more about Google’s comeback in our latest article - 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞’𝐬 𝐀𝐈 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤: 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢’𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 (Link in comments) #AI #OpenAI #Google

The Indian toy market is witnessing a significant transformation driven by government initiatives, favourable global shifts, and strategic investments. Quick commerce platforms have made toys more accessible. New educational toys and the popularity of electronic toys are aligning with global trends, further enhancing the market’s appeal. The market size is expected to soar from $1.7Bn in 2023 to $4.4Bn by 2032, exhibiting a robust 10.6% CAGR. Building strong brand loyalty is now a critical strategy for success in this competitive landscape. Movies, TV shows and video games are new growth strategies adopted by global brands like Barbie, Transformers, and Hot Wheels that create compelling narratives driving cross-monetization. In India, characters like Chhota Bheem have potential with emotional connections and innovative merchandising From FY2015 -> FY2023, exports have overtaken imports 🚀 Exports : $96Mn -> $326Mn Imports : $332Mn -> $159 Mn Investments in the Indian toy industry are on the rise, reflecting growing confidence in its potential. Companies like Skillmatics, Mirana Toys, Miko Toys, PlayShifu, the EleFant, and Imagimake have secured significant funding, driving innovation and expansion. Read more about how India is building its own Toy Story in our latest article - No Child’s Play: Rising India Toys Market (Link in Comments) Kudos to Gautam Marwah for this wonderful and in-depth article 🚀

Was it COVID that led to the rise of quick commerce platforms? Or was it quick commerce that led to convenience-based consumption? In the last 4-5 years, Indian startups and consumers have given birth to this $5B market, which is growing at mesmerizing rates, surpassing everyone's expectations (or perhaps meeting investors' expectations). Contrary to initial beliefs, it is now evident that quick commerce is here to stay, with increasing consumption happening through these platforms. Proving many wrong, these platforms have also demonstrated operational excellence, managing to operate profitably. To put this in perspective with incumbents: DMart - Avenue Supermarts Ltd achieved $6B in sales (growing ~20% YoY) with a 5.4% PAT margin in FY24, operating through 365 stores across 23 cities. Another incumbent, Spencer's Retail, recorded ~$280M in sales with EBITDA breakeven in FY24 from its 167 stores (including 34 Nature's Basket Limited stores). Will these three quick commerce platforms combined beat DMart in FY25? Which one of these three would you bet on to beat DMart first? Keep following BusinessBar to read pieces where numbers meet narratives.

The quick commerce sector is experiencing a significant resurgence, transforming consumer behaviour and e-com market landscapes. Leading the charge is Blinkit, commanding ~50% market share with higher AOVs than its peers, nearly 100% YoY growth, and EBITDA profitability. Analysts estimated Blinkit's valuation at around $13B (~6.5x of April GMV run rate) Zepto, growing at >100% YoY rate, is the #3 player with plans to achieve EBITDA profitability by September 2024. Expansion into Pvt labels, new categories like electronics and beauty along with advertising revenue is serving as major growth and profitability drivers. Unlike others backed by major corporations (Blinkit by Zomato, Instamart by Swiggy, Bigbasket by TATA, Dunzo by Reliance, and Flipkart by Walmart), Zepto relies solely on private investors. Exciting times lie ahead in the quick commerce space!

Since 2019, we've been writing engaging business commentary at BusinessBar In 2022, we started hosting casual meetups in secret locations, offering a relaxed environment to connect with others in the Indian startup scene. Edition after edition, we have been blessed to have plethora of interest for being part of BusinessBar socials. Looking forward to the awesome set of people attending today. Cheers to our community's continued growth! Shoutout to Jivraj Singh Sachar for double teaming on this one. Nevil Kathiria Abhigyan Joshi Yashvardhan Didwania Keerthana Sreekanth Rao Priya Manjunath Sunil Maurya

Our best BusinessBar socials yet! It was amazing to have so many industry veterans, founders and investors under one roof. The conversations were top-notch, and the atmosphere was relaxed yet energetic. We never imagined it would turn out this incredible. Huge thanks to Jivraj Singh Sachar for teaming up on this!

Our best BusinessBar social yet! Hosted 75 amazing start up founders, operators and investors in Gurgaon. Big thanks to Riverwalk Holdings, Mesa School of Business and Indian Silicon Valley for their support. Looking forward to more such collaborations!

Do you also feel that Uber rides have gotten more expensive recently? There's a good reason behind it. Uber is today a $140B company, and 2023 was its first profitable year. 2023 - $37B revenue with a $1.1B operating profit and $3.5B FCF 2022 - $32B with a $1.8B loss and $600M FCF 2021 - $17B with a $3.8B loss and -$445M FCF The stock has already 3X-ed since the start of 2023. Accumulated losses today stand at a negative $30.6B since its inception in 2009. With a projected $40B profit till 2028, Uber is on track to turn around and become a cash-generating machine. But it has another disruption in sight. Uber has to keep one eye on the future with the self-driving cars opportunity while also steering its ship through the muddy taxi markets around the globe and the continuous legal battles. Read BusinessBar’s latest on the Uber Financial Report (Link in the comments) #uber #startups #gig

Switzerland is home to many things - beautiful mountains, chocolates and fondues, banks with secrecy, and among many other things - watches. But there are a lot of numbers that back this reputation of Switzerland being the watch capital of the world. So here's BusinessBar's latest, covering how big the industry is, whether it is growing or not, and where the markets are. As you can see in the infographic attached, 70% of the new Swiss Luxury watches find their home in just 10 countries. Barring China, all other countries have had high disposable incomes for decades now. China - home to a lot of newly minted crazy rich Asians shows that the century-old industry has some great underlying drivers serving as a moat against the digital age. Find out more in the full read, link in bio. #switzerland #swisswatch #watches #rolex