Favcy 1st Cheque

we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! As you celebrate the year end with your near and dear ones, we bring to you a peek into all that brewed at Favcy over this year. Keeping our promise of being transparent in all that we do - this week's edition will take you through our achievements, inner workings, celebrations and our vision for the coming year.

Further along, we have a special guest in this week's note!

Pranav Chaturvedi in the house!

He has a special letter on the year gone by and his vision board for 2022.

"I look back at 2021 with fond memories. Other than the misery that the second wave of covid brought in its wake, I do not recall, even a single moment of pain that we as a company had to endure. That in itself is an achievement for a Venture Building Company, which literally plays with fire and risk every working day. 

Our numbers have shown a healthy 4x growth over the last year and our measurable impact would be far greater in terms of the value of equity that we have enhanced across our portfolio of ventures. 

Do share your feedback on this effort. You can mail us at insider@1stcheque.com

Cheers 🍻
Yamika

Khushdeep Sethi, Content Strategist, 1stCheque by Favcy

Dear reader, I had to shut down my enterprise blockchain startup (automated HR incentive distribution built on blockchain) back in 2018 because people were being sent to jail for running crypto platforms (literally) and understanding/adoption for blockchain based tech amongst corporate was zilch. We were clearly ahead of the times because today we have the world’s first social media platform supporting tokens that’s alive and kicking and right here from India. Did you know Chingari’s crypto token $GARI raised $40Mn in 24 hours of its live sale :O

This week we bring to you a deep dive into Chingari’s business model in our Favcy Review piece where our Content Lead, Khushdeep Sethi spoke to GARI’s Head of Partnerships, Vivek K.

And then there’s more furore that Indian talent is causing globally. What with the heads of multiple top companies globally being Indians. Of course the latest in line is Parag Agrawal. In our Short Take this week, we dissect the brain drain trend and its reasons. Read on to see how we can convert the 'American Dream' into the ‘India based startup dream’.

Did you know there’s single family office and then there are multi family offices? In our Angel Bytes section this week we talk about the role that the family offices, specially the second/third generations are doing (can do) for the startup ecosystem.

Dear Reader, the car that I drive is now 5 years old. Its a petrol hatchback that gives us an average of 16 Kmpl (yes, in the city traffic). But even when we bought it 5 years ago, we had decided that our next purchase is going to be an EV. While EV four-wheelers are still not mainstream, the EV two wheeler space in India is quickly heating up. The latest launch by Bounce and by Ola couple of months back and the 40% jump in Ather’s current quarter revenues is proof enough. 

If you look at the EV ecosystem a little more closely, there are two variants within the two wheeler EV space - chargeable batteries and swappable batteries. Some players are betting on charging station network while others are bullish on swapping station networks. Now which one of these is gonna fly is anybody’s guess at the moment. But imagine - what if we have a vast network of EV enablement centres that can function as charging or swapping stations depending on what’s popular in that particular area. That’s exactly what our Startup in Focus this week - Urja Bolt is aimed at. 

In addition, this week we take look at the lack of gender diversity in the founder and investor communities in our Angel Bytes section. Along with pointing out the problems we also have an initiative in place where you can participate and make a difference. Read on to find out.

Dear Reader, by now I am sure all of you know that I have shifted to a new house recently. Guilty of repetition, I promise, this is the last reference that I am making to this move. So of course my favourite pastime of late has been finding home decor ideas. 

While browsing through instagram the other day I came across a post from one of my favourite home decor creators. She had set the dining table beautifully. I loved the whole setup, the colours, et al. As always after admiring and taking some inspiration from the post I was about to move down. But there was something different about this post. It said shop the look from Amazon. I clicked on it and voila, each item used in the decor was available right there for purchase. The creator had a page on Amazon where I can shop by each decor look. Whether or not I bought the items is a different story but hooked I am for sure. 

There is live commerce, creator led commerce, tokenised commerce and more. Khushdeep Sethi beautifully decodes the social commerce realm in this week’s Favcy Review article that aptly names - Going Live in 10 seconds!
​
A lot of you must be having heartburn (and pocket burn) from the recent crypto related announcements that the government of India has made. Frankly, it was just a whole lot of speculation leading to a market crash. What will happen to crypto in circulation if the government bans it? We cover the full story in our Short Take this week.

I once heard Vijay Shekhar Sharma jokingly state at an event (in 2019) that he is just a horse with blinders being whipped by the investors to run in one direction and then the other. Of course he was at his humorous best and all of it wasn’t to be taken seriously, but his words reflected a harsh reality. Startup founders go through some very tough times (mentally) in the wake of various pressures from multiple stakeholders. This week in our Angel Bytes section The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship, we talk about these challenges and more importantly ways in which we as investors can help them cope.

And last but not the least, we have an amazing announcement from our Founding Partner, Pranav Chaturvedi -

 Do share your feedback on this effort. You can mail us at insider@1stcheque.com

Cheers 🍻
Yamika