Bonjour, UPI! UPI goes to France

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June 17, 2022

Hello Reader,

Let's face it, NPCI's international arm has travelled more than the average wanderlust-ing millennial in the last two years.

After the UAE, Singapore, Nepal, Bhutan, and other countries, UPI will now be available in France with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) signing an MoU with Lyra Network, a French payments solutions provider, for acceptance of UPI and RuPay cards.

In other news, stock markets continue to tumble in the wake of global factors. On Thursday, while the S&P BSE Sensex tanked nearly 2.12 percent over its previous day's close to touch its 52-week low of 51,425.48 points, the Nifty fell 2.28 percent to a 52-week low of 15,335.1 points.

But how are the seven Indian tech startups that went public in 2021 faring? Read our in-depth analysis .

Also, our favourite space ranger Buzz Lightyear is back! Are you ready?

"To infinity and beyond," we say.

In today's newsletter, we will talk about

Why Fractal's time is now
Tier II+ startups face post-pandemic reality
What is ZK proof in blockchain?

Here's your trivia for today: Which was the most expensive thing ever sold at an auction?

Unicorn

Why Fractal's time is now

In 2000, IIM Ahmedabad alumni Srikanth Velamakanni, Pranay Agrawal, Nirmal Palaparthi, Pradeep Suryanarayan, and Ramakrishna Reddy launched Fractal Analytics, an analytics SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) provider that addressed database queries.

A lot has changed since then. At present, only Srikanth and Pranay are at the helm of the startup, which also attained billion-dollar valuation this year after it raised $360 million from private equity firm TPG Capital Asia.

In a conversation with YourStory, Srikanth said Fractal works with close to 140 clients today, all of which have revenues over $10 billion. "When targeting clients, we go by the 10-20-30 rule—it should either have $10 billion in revenue, $20 billion in market cap, or 30 million customers," he added.

Key takeaways:

Fractal clocked revenue of $174 million, or about Rs 1,295 crore in FY 2022, of which nearly 70 percent comes from the US.
It aims to bring data and algorithms to every client decision, using cutting-edge AI.
Most recently, Fractal Analytics acquired Neal Analytics to scale its AI offerings on the Microsoft multi-cloud ecosystem.

"On a possible market debut, Srikanth said, "We think of it as a 100-year journey so going public is consistent with that mindset. If the markets are permissive, it is just a question of timing and getting our ducks in a row."

Funding Alert

$520M

ShareChat

$225M

upGrad

$50M

G.O.A.T Brand Labs

Startup

Tier II+ startups face post-pandemic reality

In 2021—considered a period of homecoming for skilled professionals due to the COVID-19 pandemic—talent moved back from metros to smaller cities. New ideas started emerging from smaller towns. The reach of internet services also helped companies manage workload despite lockdowns.

The possibilities, it seemed, were endless. Cities such as Kochi, Indore, Bhopal, Jaipur, and Srinagar, which earlier lacked the technology startup ecosystem, began buzzing with new activity.

But there's a change as founders in Tier II and III cities are now grappling with post-pandemic realities as businesses chart growth journeys.

A quick look:

Cities such as Gurugram and Bengaluru have offices of the top venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital India, Lightspeed Venture, and Elevation Capital.
Tier I cities have bustling startup culture, with frequent founder meetups and accelerator programmes.
The frequency of these programmes has increased post-pandemic.

"Growing beyond a point is not possible in Tier II and III cities. While hiring can also be solved for, non-metro cities do not have the ecosystem as of now to nurture growing startups," said Sushil Sharma, Founder, Marwari Catalyst Ventures.

Blockchain

What is ZK proofing?

A Zero Knowledge proof (ZK proof) enables one party to prove to another that a transaction is valid without disclosing transaction information to prove the validity. For example, loan providers need credit scores and other financial details. However, this process can leave users vulnerable to information leaks. In this situation, a ZK proof would preserve private details of the user by only revealing specific information to the loan provider.

This concept has found a use case in blockchain.

Despite being the most widely adopted platform for blockchain-based apps, Ethereum (ETH) suffers from slow transaction speeds and high transaction costs (gas fees), which can rise to hundreds of dollars even for micro transactions, due to network congestion.

This is where Layer 2 solutions and ZK rollups and proofs come into play, not only by bringing privacy to the Ethereum blockchain but by also reducing the amount of data that needs to be shared and proven between users.

Key takeaways:

ZK rollups and proofs allow bundled transactions to be valid off the main blockchain in a cheaper, faster, and more privacy-focused manner.
One key disadvantage is that ZK proofs require robust infrastructure (computers) to run and a high degree of data optimisation to reach their true potential.
Ethereum scaling infrastructure solution Polygon is one of the primary drivers for ZK in Ethereum scaling, and has even committed $1 billion to its ZK-related efforts.

News & Updates

Sky high: Oil marketing companies (OMCs) hiked Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) prices by 16.3 percent on Thursday, taking jet fuel prices to a record high of Rs 1.41 lakh per kilolitre in Delhi. This record increase in ATF prices, combined with the depreciating rupee, is set to increase the cost of operations for airlines, which could lead to an increase in air fares by up to 15 percent.
Not so pretty: US beauty brand Revlon Inc has filed for bankruptcy buckling under debts it built up in efforts to compete with online-focused upstarts. Known for its nail polishes and lipsticks, the 90-year-old company listed assets and liabilities of between $1 billion and $10 billion in a court filing.
Plunge continues: Bitcoin fell Thursday as a sell-off in global risk assets resumed, with crypto investors reeling from a dramatic plunge over the last few days that saw the world's largest cryptocurrency almost drop below $20,000.

Here's what you should watch out for

A Group of Ministers (GoM), led by Karnataka CM Basavraj S Bommai, to discuss GST rate rationalisation.
Talks to reach a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union to begin in Brussels in Belgium.

What do we have for you?

Microsoft's latest webinar presented a detailed view at the flexibility GitHub provides developers to build an automated software development lifecycle workflow. The live, demo-driven masterclass was conducted by Vivek Shridhar, Senior Cloud Advocate, Developer Relations, Cloud + AI Engineering at Microsoft. He also spoke about the ongoing national-level startup hackathon 2022.

Know More

How was NASSCOM built? Harish Mehta, the founding member and first Chairman of National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), pens down his learnings for today's entrepreneurs.

Read Here

Surat-based organisation Ivy Growth Associates and Sapio Analytics are hosting the 21by72 Startup Summit from June 17 - 19, 2022. Three days of panel discussions, keynote speeches, pitching opportunities, networking dinners, one-on-one breakout spaces, and a lot more.

Did you know?

Which was the most expensive thing ever sold at an auction?

Answer: Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi", bought for $450 million by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, in New York in 2017.

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