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Welcome to September!

Iconic soft drink Campa Cola is making a comeback—as a Reliance Retail brand. The Economic Times reported that Reliance bought Campa from Delhi-based Pure Drinks Group for ~Rs 22 crore, and the product will launch in October across Reliance Retail stores and JioMart.

Meanwhile, India remained the fastest-growing major economy as its GDP expanded by 13.5% in the first quarter of FY23. In comparison, China registered economic growth of 0.4% in the same period.

Oh, today is World Letter Writing Day. Check out this Instagram account that curates several fascinating letters.

Happy reading!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Inside M2P Fintech’s shopping bag
• Building sustainable food businesses
• Leveraging NFTs to invest in music

Here’s your trivia for today: Which is the oldest MGM cartoon owned by Warner Brothers?

Fintech

Inside M2P Fintech’s shopping bag

M2P Fintech Solutions had the first mover advantage in the embedded finance space when it started as a payment stack provider in 2014.

In the past 300 days, the Chennai-based API infrastructure provider has acquired five startups for two main reasons—to build a larger plug-and-play SaaS product for traditional banks to go digital, and diversify revenue stream with new areas. 

The playbook:

• M2P has a valuation of more than $600 million, with over 30 banks and 600 fintech clients globally, with Rs 40.58 crore revenue (FY21) spanned across 15 countries.
• It has a $70 million funding war chest from investors like Tiger Global, Beenext, DMI Group, Better Capital, Insight Partners, and MUFG Innovation partners. 
• The fintech startup is tracking other opportunities in the embedded finance space like embedded insurance and investment. 

Startup

Building sustainable food businesses

Getting a food business off the ground requires a lot of work and comes with unique challenges. Even after the business is up and running, it takes time, effort, and money to nurture and sustain it. 

Enter Hustlers Hospitality which provides three key services—end-to-end consulting, an accelerator programme, and a growth-hack model—for foodpreneurs, cloud kitchens, and quick service restaurant (QSR) brands. 

On the menu:

• Hustlers Hospitality operates over 36 brands of cloud kitchens and has tied up with more than 700 internet restaurateurs. 
• The company has recently acquired a 31% stake in My Cloud Kitchen, a cloud kitchen consulting firm. 
• The company charges a one-time fee of Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 4 lakh for consultation and franchise services, depending on the scope of the work.

Blockchain

NFTs for music ownership

Have you ever wished you could own a song? Or at least a part of it? Launched by Prashan Agarwal, FanTiger connects artists with fans through NFTs (non-fungible tokens). 

Owning a fractionalised NFT of a song allows the holder to earn royalty income based on the song’s performance on Spotify, YouTube, Gaana, etc.

Jam session:

• FanTiger recently raised $5.5 million in a seed round led by Multicoin Capital.
• The platform has already signed up with artists such as Sunanda Sharma and Naalayak for their music releases. 
• It is also building a secondary marketplace where holders can sell their NFTs. 

News & updates

• In the green: Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Wednesday as technology and growth stocks rebounded after a three-day slump on rate hike worries, while weaker-than-expected private payrolls data and a slide in oil prices helped ease some worries about inflation.
• Ramped up: Toyota would invest an extra $2.5 billion in a US facility that will manufacture batteries for both hybrid electric and battery electric vehicles. Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina is set to start operations in 2025.
• Old tech: Japan’s digital minister, who’s vowed to rid the bureaucracy of outdated tools from the hanko stamp to the fax machine, has now declared “war” on a technology many haven’t seen for decades—the floppy disk. 

What you should watch out for

• India to launch its first vaccine against cervical cancer.
• Ola Electric to open purchase window for its electric scooter S1. 

Which is the oldest MGM cartoon owned by Warner Brothers?

Answer: ‘The Discontented Canary’ (1934), which was actually the first Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated cartoon.

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