Arvind’s Newsletter

1.India has $20 bn dry powder waiting to be invested: Peak XV MD Anandan, reports Business Standard.

Dry powder refers to unallocated capital raised by private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) players that are ready to be invested.

This comes at a time when the Indian startup world has been at the receiving end of a funding slowdown, with investors becoming more selective with their bets.

Speaking at the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence Summit at Bharat Mandapam on Wednesday, Anandan said that investors are looking to invest this unallocated capital in promising sectors like artificial intelligence (AI), specifically in companies offering both AI-based products and services.

“In the next 15-20 years, India will have at least 50 new (AI-driven) billion-dollar companies that are going to solve problems for the largest companies around the world,” he said.

2.The world’s nations reached the first-ever deal to reduce the global use of fossil fuels, reports The Guardian.

The agreement reached at the COP28 climate summit appeared in doubt — fossil-fuel producers opposed calls for a “phase out” of coal, oil, and natural gas — but diplomats ultimately settled on calling for “transitioning away” from polluting sources. The final document, though not legally binding and short of the most ambitious efforts hoped for by activists and negotiators, was hailed by global powers including the U.S. and European Union, as well as oil behemoths such as Saudi Arabia. However, it lacked specific targets for climate adaptation or mandates for wealthy countries to increase financial assistance to developing nations, and left the controversial question of the use of carbon-capture technology unresolved.

3.How young Africans are changing French, reports New York Times

More than 60 percent of people worldwide who speak French live in Africa, and demographers predictthat by 2060, that number could grow to 85 percent. A growing number of words and expressions from there are now infusing the French language.

The change is being spurred by the booming populations of young people in West and Central Africa.Through social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube, they are reshaping the language from within countries that were once colonised by France.

Hip-hop, which now dominates the French music industry, is injecting new words, phrases and concepts from Africa into the suburbs and cities of France. “Countless artists have democratised French music with African slang,” said a Congolese music executive.

4.Netflix released its first comprehensive viewing figures summary, reports Hollywood Reporter

The data covers 18,000 titles accounting for 99% of all Netflix consumption, and nearly 100 billion hours of viewing time in the first half of 2023.Some of it is unsurprising. The Night Agent was the biggest hit, with 800 million hours’ viewing, while Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story and other new releases did well. But more than 30% of total viewing came from non-English content, and some titles had a long shelf life, such as All Quiet on the Western Front, still doing well months after release. The writers’ and actors’ strikes this year demanded more transparent streaming data: Presumably those who worked on the less-watched items will keep quiet about it.

5.Indians are going gooey over dogs, reports The Economist

When kyle d’costa and his wife met Rio, a nine-month old shih apso, in 2021 “it was love at first sight.” The newly-weds soon added a shih tzu and, besotted with their pooches, also pet insurance, doggy-sized India cricket jerseys and other accoutrements. Then they rented a bigger flat to give the animals “more space”.

The D’Costas and millions of other middle-class Indians, chief beneficiaries of the country’s strong recent growth, are following a well-trodden development path. No longer content with new cars, branded sneakers and other Western baubles, they are rapidly acquiring pets. According to Statista, a data company, India had 19.4m pet dogs in 2018 and may now have 31m. In 2021 Market Decipher, another research outfit, estimated India’s pet economy to be worth $890m and that it would almost triple in size over the next decade.

The trend mirrors even more dramatic growth in China’s pet industry, which is estimated to have increased fivefold in seven years, to $58.6bn in 2022. Increased pet-ownership comes with rising incomes, especially among young professionals who tend to delay marriage and parenthood and be especially open to a poochie surrogate. It is only a matter of time before matrimonial websites include a “pet-friendly” option. In India as elsewhere, the covid-19 lockdown also increased demand for animal companionship.

Established pet-industry players are gearing up and new ones emerging. Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company, last year acquired Purina Petcare, an Indian pet-food business. Emami, an Indian consumer-goods giant, offers Ayurvedic medicines for pets. Euromonitor International, a market-research company, thinks India’s pet-food industry is worth $480m and will grow to $1.2bn by 2025.

Pet services, conventional and somewhat outlandish, are also booming. Grooming and boarding companies are becoming commonplace. Wiggles, one such firm, recently opened a vast facility in Pune, in Maharashtra. Supertails, an online pet store, offers pet-relationship managers and advises on pet-friendly policies. “We offer paw-ternity leave”, deadpans Varun Sadana, its co-founder, “for new parents [he means owners].” Take A Dog’s Story, a pet-friendly hotel chain, encourages customers “to pick a paw-perty at some of the most scenic locations across India.’‘ Visiting pets are garlanded with marigolds. “For me, the pet is a guest, not you,” says its founder, Himmat Anand.

As the prestige of pet-ownership rises, so does that of those working in the industry. “Being in this trade was looked down upon just five years ago,” says Chinmay, a 30-year-old dog trainer in Thane, a suburb of Mumbai. “How will you find a girl?” he recalls his relatives asking him. But dog trainers in Mumbai can these days charge 2,400 rupees ($30) an hour—more than twice as much as piano teachers. Chinmay, in hot demand, is now happily married to one of his clients.