Mamaearth’s house-of-brand playbook; Tejas: An overly patriotic tale

Hello,

Reliance Industries Ltd posted a 27% rise in Q2 net profit to Rs 17,394 crore. 

Its telecom subsidiary, Reliance Jio, reported a 12% YoY rise in net profit for Q2 FY24 while revenue shot up to Rs 24,856 crore from Rs 22,633 crore in the year-ago period. It also unveiled JioSpaceFiber, India's first satellite-based giga-fibre service to provide high-speed broadband services in remote areas.

Earlier this month, Jio Financial Services reported a net profit of Rs 668 crore. This was the first financial result the company posted after debuting on the stock exchanges in August.

Also, healthtech startup Practo reduced losses by over 50%—from Rs 211.86 crore in FY22 to Rs 93.68 crore in FY23, while its revenue increased marginally by 3% to Rs 194.53 crore in FY23.

Elsewhere, Amazon posted a 13% YoY growth in revenue at $143.1 billion for the July-September quarter on the back of growth in the advertising business and AWS, its cloud-computing business. 

ICYMI: Boston Robotics, the company behind robot dogs, has used ChatGPT to train its bot to answer questions and generate responses.

Lastly, NASA spacecraft Juno went ‘trick or treating’ near Jupiter and spotted a ghoulish face!

Just in time for Halloween!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Mamaearth’s house-of-brand playbook
• Transforming remote Himalayan villages
• Tejas: An overly patriotic tale

Here’s your trivia for today: Only two batsmen in Cricket World Cup history scored 1,000+ runs without any ducks. Who are they?

Beauty and Wellness

Mamaearth’s house-of-brand playbook

Earlier this week, Honasa Consumer filed its red herring prospectus with the SEBI, expressing its intention to raise up to Rs 365 crore in fresh issue of shares and offer for sale (OFS) of about 4.12 crore shares. According to the prospectus, the D2C brand will allocate close to Rs 182 crore of the IPO proceeds towards advertisement expenses.

“The public listing is a few days away and is an overwhelming and emotional moment for Varun (Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer) and me,” Co-founder and CIO Ghazal Alagh tells YourStory.

Business strategies:

• The pre-IPO placement will open on October 30, and the public issue will close on November 2.
• Honasa will use some of the proceeds for strategic acquisitions to expand its house-of-brands portfolio. The company will continue to look at acquiring brands through a consumer lens.
• The company has replicated the lessons from its Mamaearth playbook to other brands, including The Derma Co and Aqualogica, and will continue to implement the strategy for new acquisitions, according to Alagh.

Startup

Transforming remote Himalayan villages

In 2018, Nikhil Pratap Singh founded Planet Trotter, a travel-for-impact social venture, which aims to boost adventure tourism and also reverberates with a mission of transforming forgotten rural landscapes. 

It was born out of a commitment to bring about positive change in the lives of marginalised communities while simultaneously fulfilling Singh’s passion for outdoor exploration. The venture aims at catalysing changes in villages across Uttarakhand through various expedition projects.

On the go:

• The startup promotes offbeat travel to remote places in forgotten or lesser-known villages through its website and social media.
• The team has conducted six expeditions after COVID-19, which include the Uttarakhand Caravan Expedition, Valley of River, and others.
• Singh says travel serves as a bridge connecting urban visitors, particularly millennials and Gen Z, with rural communities, fostering positive change in multiple dimensions.

YS Reviews

Tejas: An overly patriotic tale

Some films look to ignite patriotic fervour through heightened stories about India’s armed forces. While this approach has given us gripping films with magnetic protagonists, such as Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), Kangana Ranaut starrer Tejas fails to deliver the desired effect. 

What to expect:

• Patriotism is the underlying reason for most of the choices that the protagonist makes in the film, thus creating a serious atmosphere of overwhelming goodness and overdone platitudes.
• Touted as India’s first aerial action film, Tejas should have had greater kicks and dramatic turns. Instead, the film–loaded with determined patriotism around India’s armed forces–is stolid and lacklustre.
• The film positions Ranaut as a strong protagonist. Her performance is solid, and her ability to don the role of a fighter pilot is convincing. But her character could have had touches of lighter moments and humane elements.

News & updates

• Humans vs AI: As per research published in Nature, scientists have demonstrated that an AI system called a neural network can be trained to show "systematic compositionality," a key part of human intellect. The meta-learning for compositionality-trained neural networks matched or exceeded the humans' performance on these tests.
• AI regulation: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres revealed the establishment of a 39-member advisory committee aimed at tackling matters related to the global regulation of AI. The roster comprises tech industry leaders, government representatives, and scholars.
• Love story: Taylor Swift is now a billionaire following a project to re-record her albums, a record-breaking, economy-boosting Eras Tour, and blockbuster box office takings for her concert film. Swift's 53 US concerts in 2023 added an estimated $4.3 billion to the country's GDP.

Only two batsmen in Cricket World Cup history scored 1,000+ runs without any ducks. Who are they?

Answer: Viv Richards and Sanath Jayasuriya. Jayasuriya amassed 1,165 runs while Viv made 1,013 without getting out on zero in World Cups.

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