Flipkart drives Walmart’s international revenue; go hardcore or go home, Elon Musk tells Twitter staff

Credit: Tenor

Also in this letter:
■ Commit to ‘hardcore’ Twitter or go home, Elon Musk tells staff
■ Unitus Ventures to close $100 million third fund next year
■ Sam Bankman-Fried faces a possible trip to US for questioning

Flipkart’s Big Billion Days event boosts Walmart International’s Q3 sales

US retailer Walmart saw its international sales increase by 13% in the third quarter, aided by Flipkart’s flagship festive sale, Big Billion Days.

Driving the news: In its quarterly earnings call for the September quarter, Walmart said its international revenue increased 13% to $26.8 billion in constant-currency terms, primarily driven by double-digit growth in Flipkart and its Mexico business Walmex.

Typically, the festive season sale is held in the fourth quarter but this year’s Big Billion Days took place from September 23-30.

New customers, more ads: Walmart International’s president and CEO Judith McKenna said in the earnings call that the firm was pleased with Flipkart’s performance this quarter and was able to attract new online shoppers, with more than a billion visits during the sale.

The timing of Flipkart’s sale also helped reduce inventory growth, the company said in its investor presentation.

Flipkart was also a significant contributor to Walmart’s ads business during the quarter, which grew about 40% during the period, the firm said in a statement. McKenna said in June that India was Walmart’s biggest market in terms of ad revenue.

We reported on October 28 that Flipkart Internet, which runs the online marketplace, saw its ad revenue increase 50% to Rs 2,083 crore in FY22.

Festive leader: According to a report by market research firm Redseer, Flipkart Group, including fashion etailer Myntra and value commerce marketplace Shopsy, maintained its leadership position in the first leg of the festive season sale with a market share of 62%.

Commit to ‘hardcore’ Twitter or go home, Elon Musk tells staff

Twitter chief executive Elon Musk gave employees two difficult choices on Wednesday – either commit to the new ‘hardcore’ Twitter or go home with three months severance pay, the Washington Post reported.

Pledge: In an email, Musk asked Twitter’s employees to sign a pledge if they wished to stay on with the company.

“If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below,” read the email, which had an online form attached, and also formally ended Twitter’s work-from-anywhere policy.

Anyone who failed to sign the pledge by 5 pm US Eastern Time on Thursday would be handed a three-month severance package, Musk wrote.

Musk emailed the Washington Post, saying “Twitter will need to be extremely hardcore” going forward. “This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

Twitter Blue, take two: Musk is in the midst of making his first key product change since taking over the company last month – paid verified accounts starting at $8 a month. He said on Wednesday that Twitter would relaunch the subscription service on November 29, adding that unpaid, legacy blue ticks would be removed in a few months if the account holders didn’t sign up for Twitter Blue.

The initial launch was withdrawn after several accounts, maliciously impersonating companies and well-known people, paid for a blue tick and proceeded to spread chaos and misinformation on the platform.

Also Read | Twitter is very slow in India, even on latest iPhones: Musk

Unitus Ventures to close $100 million third fund next year

Early-stage venture capital fund Unitus Ventures is planning to close its third fund in India with a corpus of $100 million next year, the fund’s cofounder and managing partner Will Poole told us. Unitus has backed startups such as CueMath, GigForce, Masai School and CareerNinja.

Focus: With the third fund, Unitus Ventures will increase its focus on areas such as job-tech, enterprise SaaS, and sustainability and climate.

There’s more: The VC fund, which has offices in Bengaluru and Seattle, also plans to close a Rs 300 crore opportunity fund, through which it will invest in successful startups from its first two funds.

ETtech Done Deals

• Edtech firm Simplilearn has raised $45 million in a fresh round of funding led by global edtech-focussed venture capital firm GSV Ventures, the company said on Wednesday. Clal Insurance, DisruptAD, and ADQ’s venture platform also participated in the round.

• Bengaluru-based CSR-tech platform Goodera has raised $10 million from investors including Zoom Ventures, Elevation Capital, Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal’s Xto10X, Nexus Venture Partners, and Omidyar Network. Bansal has also invested in the startup in his personal capacity.

Sam Bankman-Fried faces a possible trip to US for questioning

Authorities in the US and the Bahamas have been discussing the possibility of bringing Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to the US for questioning, three people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Talks intensify: The conversations between law-enforcement officials in the two countries have intensified in recent days as they probe his role in the implosion of cryptocurrency firm FTX.

SBF has been cooperating with Bahamian authorities, said one of the people. No one has been arrested or taken into custody yet, Bloomberg said, citing another source.

SBF aide ‘tweaked’ accounting software: Some details of what happened at FTX are already known – for instance, that SBF secretly used $10 billion in customer funds to prop up his trading business.

Now, a Reuters review of company documents, and interviews with current and former executives and investors, paint a comprehensive picture of how SBF became one of the world’s richest men in just a couple of years, before his empire collapsed in over a few days. Here’s what Reuters found.

• In presentations to investors, some of the same assets appeared simultaneously on the balance sheets of FTX and of SBF’s trading firm, Alameda Research. FTX has repeatedly claimed it operated independently of Alameda.

• One of SBF’s close aides tweaked FTX’s accounting software, allowing SBF to hide the transfer of customers’ money from FTX to Alameda.

Here are the key numbers behind the story.

Tweet of the day

Tata to open 20 ‘beauty tech’ outlets, in talks with foreign brands

The Tata Group plans to open at least 20 ‘beauty tech’ stores where it will use virtual makeup kiosks and digital skin tests to get young, affluent shoppers to buy premium cosmetic products, Reuters reported, citing a company document and a source.

More competition for Nykaa: The move pits Tata against LVMH’s Sephora and domestic rival Nykaa for a share of India’s fast-growing $16 billion beauty and personal care market.

Target audience: Tata is eyeing what it calls a “beauty enthusiast” in India aged between 18 and 45 years who likes to buy foreign brands such as Estee Lauder’s MAC and Bobbi Brown, according to the document, which lists The Honest Company, Ellis Brooklyn and Gallinee as potential partners.

Tata is in talks with more than two dozen companies to supply exclusive products to the new stores, according to a person familiar with the strategy, who did not name specific brands.

Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.