Good morning. This segment of Indian business and tech news was brought to you by Earlybird. If FOMO persists, consult your doctor.

In this edition:

• 📱 Facebook and Twitter are about to get fact-checked

• 🐦️ Twitter pulls plug on free API

• 🎮️ $4.5B gaming acquisition

MARKETS

*Stock data as of market close. Source.

• Markets: Nifty formed a respectable positive candle with a light upper shadow last closing, and is currently situated at the significant barrier of the last opening negative gap around 17,600.

BUSINESS

ZestMoney to let go of 100 employees after failed deal with Phone

💸 ZestMoney, a consumer lending platform, has announced that it will be laying off around 100 employees (roughly 20% of its workforce) after a proposed deal with digital payments company PhonePe fell through.

What’s the deal?

• The deal, which would have seen PhonePe acquire a stake in ZestMoney, was expected to help the latter sustain its operations… with ~money~ (around $150M - $300M).

• In return, the acquisition was supposed to help PhonePe strengthen its lending offerings and buck horns with the likes of Google Pay, Paytm, and Amazon Pay in India.

Why the deal crumbled into smithereens. According to people familiar with the matter, the deal broke along the following fracture points:

• Lapses in due diligence (on whose part, it was kept pretty vague)

• Valuation disagreements

• Concerns around business sustainability

• ZestMoney’s shareholding structure

EXPORTS

Indian company scores $3.28M cotton order from Bangladesh

Cotton fields are a-blooming

☁️ Axita Cotton, a top local producer-exporter of raw cotton, has just received a huge order from Bangladesh worth $3.28M (about Rs. 26.92 crore), which will be sent out in large cotton shipments over the next 3 months.

Where’s it headed? The recipient of this massive delivery is unnamed as of yet but is reported to have an immensely good track record as one of the foremost textile companies in Bangladesh.

Among others. Axita Cotton is on a roll, apparently, as other companies from Europe, China, and Vietnam have “cott-on” as well, with large raw cotton orders of their own.

Riding on Cloud 9. Kushal Nitinbhai Patel from Axita claimed that the company's emphasis on sustainability and innovation is what had helped them keep the company’s position as a top producer and exporter of raw cotton.

TECH

Facebook and Twitter to pass through government fact-checkers

📱 Facebook and Twitter will now be required to comply with the Indian government's fact-checking mechanism, according to new rules announced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Here’s the gist of it:

• The move comes as part of the government's efforts to regulate social media platforms and curb the spread of misinformation.

• Under the new rules, FB and Twitter will be required to remove content flagged by New Delhi’s in-house fact-checking division, likely comprised of people who love starting sentences with the phrase, “Well, actually…”

• Failure to comply with the rule, which also applies to internet service providers, may just cost these companies their safe harbor protections.

Mixed Reactions

The move has drawn mixed reactions, with some expressing concern over potential government censorship and the impact on freedom of expression. Others have welcomed the move, saying it will help to combat the spread of false information and hate speech on social media platforms.

INDIA EDITION: WHAT ELSE IS ON THE BIRDWATCH

• 🔥 New gas equation cuts CNG prices. The government has revised the gas pricing formula, which means good news for fans of CNG and piped cooking gas. These gas options will now cost 10% less

• 📖 BYJU’s is still cramming for its loan payment. BYJU's is facing more financial pressure as its lenders are urging them to cough up a $200M prepayment on a $1.2B loan, and with a higher interest rate to boot.

• ♠️ A heavier warning against gambling ads. India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has clamped down even harder on ads promoting betting and gambling. The directive was passed onto all types of media platforms, which are now highly discouraged by law from carrying any such content.

FUNDING DEALS

Catch up on the Indian funding flows from the past 24hrs:

• Apptile, a SaaS startup providing new no-code ways of developing apps, just raised $2.5M in seed funding led by the Mankekar Family Office and Ramakant Sharma. The new funds will be used to take its highly-anticipated platform to market.

• Zero Cow Factory, an animal-free protein producer, just raised $4M in seed funding led by Green Frontier Capital and other investors who are keen to take the firm’s innovative bioengineering techniques to greater heights.

SPOTLIGHT

🖥 Apple hid the bitcoin whitepaper in all macs. A function called Virtual Scanner II, which is not enabled by default, contains a nondescript image of a San Francisco bay and the PDF of the white paper. (See how to find it below👇) It's unclear how this happened, but theories include a rogue employee or Tim Cook being Satoshi. This is not the first time Apple has added secret content to their devices.

Regardless of how it got there, we think this is way cooler than the time Apple put a random U2 album on all of our iPhones in 2014. Keep your eyes peeled for more Easter eggs like this one.

WORLD

Headline Explorer

🐦️ Twitter pulls plug on free API, breaking everything. Twitter has shut off its free API, leaving many third-party app developers in India and beyond in a state of disarray. This comes as a result of Twitter suddenly changing its developer strategy and treatment toward third-party clients.

📕 Amazon closes chapter on online bookstore. Amazon is closing down its global online bookstore, Book Depository, as part of its latest cost-cutting measures. As part of this transition, the company will be servicing customers until late June of this year before stamping a big ‘ol “The End” on its book-selling division.

🎮️ Saudi’s Savvy Games scoops up Scopely for $4.9B. One of the largest acquisitions in the history of gaming just took place and involved the recent $4.9B purchase of California’s Scopely by the Saudi Arabian mobile gaming company Savvy Games.

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