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Credit card spending hit a record high of Rs 1.4 lakh crore in May, the latest data from the Reserve Bank of India showed. The total spending on credit cards has been rising by 5% month-on-month this year. Besides, the average spend on a card scaled a new peak of Rs 16,144.

Similarly, the number of cards in use has also jumped by more than five million since January and crossed 87.4 million in the reporting month, marking an all-time high in May. 

In other news, Threads—a Slack alternative that launched in stealth mode back in 2019 with backing from Sequoia Capital—has seen a significant increase in traffic to its website in the days following the launch of its namesake by Meta. 

This is largely owing to the fact that Threads (the Slack alternative) owns the Threads.com domain name, whereas Instagram’s incarnation is on the less sexy Threads.net (though the app doesn’t have a web interface as yet).

Also, numbers from Data.ai indicated that Instagram’s Threads has now hit 150 million downloads.

Meanwhile, India will push G20 members to support its proposal to raise the share of taxes multinational companies pay to countries where they earn “excess profits”. 

More than 140 countries were supposed to start implementing a 2021 deal, overhauling decades-old rules on how governments tax multinationals, by next year. The current rules are widely considered outdated as digital giants like Apple or Amazon can book profits in low-tax countries.

ICYMI: Here are six game-changing discoveries made by the James Webb Space Telescope in its first year.  

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Styched acquires Shark Tank-fame Flatheads
• Flipping the Indian hip-hop game
• Saving lives on Indian roads

Here’s your trivia for today:  Which planets experience diamond showers?

D2C

Styched acquires Shark Tank-fame Flatheads

Singapore-headquartered D2C fashion and lifestyle brand Styched has acquired sneaker brand Flatheads, which featured in Shark Tank India Season 2. The mixed cash and equity deal will help Flatheads with the cash payout to fund inventory, pay off vendor debts, and other financial commitments. 

Styched did not comment on the size of the deal or the valuation of Flatheads. According to market research and data platform Tracxn, Flatheads was valued at $3.53 million post-money, as of May 2022.

Sneakers on:

• Flatheads will continue to retail its products through its own website, with its mass-market offerings retailed on Styched’s website, said Soumajit Bhowmik, CEO of Styched. 
• Founded in 2018 by Ganesh Balakrishnan and Utkarsh Biradar, the sneaker brand had earlier raised funds from We Founder Circle, LetsVenture, and angel investors, among others.
• “We are planning to acquire three more brands in the mass-premium segment pricing their products from Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000 for a separate offering, including an athleisure brand, over the next few months. We are also in the process of closing a new round of funding,” Bhowmik said.

Music

Flipping the Indian hip-hop game

Believed to be India’s first all-female hip-hop collective which started in 2021, Wild Wild Women has five rappers―HashtagPreeti (Preeti N Sutar), Krantinaari (Ashwini Hiremath), MC Mahila (Shruti Raut), JQueen (Jacqulin Lucas), and Pratika (Pratika E. Prabhune). 

They are defying conventions with their music flow, multilingualism, and themes exploring mental health, women empowerment, and patriarchal prejudices. Some of their songs are—Doing Okay, Positivity Rap, Living Waves, Game Flip, and more.

Empowering:

• These women’s paths crossed at a cypher in 2021, organised by rappers HashtagPreeti and Krantinaari, who wanted to create a space for female rappers and beat-boxers in India. 
• Despite making progress with their families who were opposed to their career choice, the collective also faces hurdles in establishing its presence within the Indian hip-hop and rap community. 
• The crew strongly believes that the rap industry dominated by men for a long time, has songs often objectifying women. However, they believe female artists are changing the narrative now.

Inspiration

Saving lives on Indian roads

Piyush Tewari started SaveLIFE Foundation in 2008 after he lost his cousin to a tragic road accident. Since then, the organisation has helped bring the Good Samaritan Law into effect and initiated various projects for road safety.

Fifteen years hence, SLF continues its mission through various initiatives, including the implementation of the Zero Fatality Corridor, the Jeevan Raksha training programme, a partnership with AIIMS, Rishikesh, and its most recent project, Tactical Urbanism.

Road safety:

• SLF signed an MoU with AIIMS Rishikesh earlier this year to advance road safety and emergency medical care in India. Tewari believes India needs to have a nationwide universal access number for all emergencies.
• In 2022, SLF launched the Tactical Urbanism (TU) trials as part of its Zero Fatality Corridor programme—one of its many engineering solutions implemented on-ground to prevent loss of lives.
• So far, SLF has conducted 21 trials in four cities—Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, and Nagpur—with excellent responses from local communities and the government.

News & updates

• India market: Xiaomi will focus on boosting its India sales from retail outlets after years of big bets on ecommerce, its India president said, as the company seeks to revive smartphone sales after falling behind South Korea’s Samsung.
• Deal: Britain formally signed a treaty on Sunday in New Zealand confirming accession to the vast Indo-Pacific CPTPP bloc, the country’s largest post-Brexit trade deal to date. More than 99% of the current UK goods exported to CPTPP countries will soon be eligible for zero tariffs, the UK government said.
• Cybertruck: Tesla built its first Cybertruck at the electric-vehicle marker’s plant in Austin, Texas, after two years of delays. The company had pushed back production timing, and Musk had last year cited shortages in sourcing components as the reason for pushing the launch of Cybertruck into 2023.

Which planets experience diamond showers?

Answer: Uranus and Neptune. Temperature and pressure conditions are so extreme on these planets that carbon atoms could be crushed into diamonds in their atmospheres. 

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