BC BUSINESS
Saved by @SteveeRogerr

SoFi was founded in 2011 by 4 students who met at Stanford

🎓 The goal was to decrease the student debt burden by giving out lower rates than federal standards

💸 SoFi’s rates ranged from 5.99% to 6.5%, undercutting federal and privates rates which ranged from 6.8% to 16%

 By September 2012, SoFi was reported to have commit over $ 200m in loans

📈 This increased to $ 450m by April 2014 and its borrowers reportedly got on average $ 9,400 in savings by refinancing their loan

https://t.co/ooW8URzu3L
💸 Today, SoFi wants to help its customers with every “financial” step of their journey, providing:

· Student loans

· Medical loans

· Home loans

· Renters insurance (powered by $LMND)

· ETFs

· Stocks & cryptos

· Credit card

· Auto insurance (powered by $ROOT)

& more!
⏱ It has also understood that time-pressed and convenience-seeking young professionals value the following elements:

· Speed

· Choice

· Content

· Education

And $SOFI thus turned itself into a convenient, affordable, transparent and user-friendly financial platform
This means that SoFi’s wants to be a “one-stop-shop” for its users

💸 Enabling it to cross-sell its different products and reduce its Customer Acquisition Cost
$SOFI is betting that it can replicate $AMZN, $FB and $UBER’s successes in their industry

🦄 And become the leading FinTech

“where three to five FinTech companies will emerge as leaders, and one will emerge as a Winner Takes Most, and we believe that will be SoFi.”
🥉 This claim rests on the observation that around 250m banking account are held by the more than 4,700 Tier-2 banks in the U.S.

🏦 And around 40% of Americans use more than one bank account as their primary bank doesn’t offer fully integrated services
$SOFI therefor bets that it can attract these customers with its modern and fully-integrated digital banking experience

This strategy is supported by a tool $SOFI acquired in April 2020 for $ 1.2B:

⚙️ GALILEO

https://t.co/xvQvQYEsdS
🏭 Galileo is the engine behind Robinhood, Revolut, Monzo, Chime, TransferWise

“With our APIs our clients can create and manage accounts, authorize payments, manage card balances and get fraud protection. We manage the entire back end, […]”
Galileo is central in powering SoFi’s growth, profitability and long term competitive position

⚡️ SoFi’s unit economics will be hard to beat by companies that compete with SoFi but are also SUPPLIED by it

$SOFI will then be the "AWS of FinTech"
💬 Here are some of #SoFi’s CEO remarks in a discussion wtih Chamath Palihapitiya

“The addition of Galileo’s technology platform allows us to vertically integrate our financial services”

“[…] so that we can achieve superior economics in these products as well”
“We believe our vertical integration of tech and operations, via our lending stack, and now the Galileo technology platform,”

“coupled with the revenue and marketing efficiencies of cross-buying, will drive attractive unit economics that will be hard to beat.”
Great! How is the market doing?

🌐 According to ReportLinker, the global market for Digital Banking is set to reach $ 22.3B by 2025

📈 Driven by the growing base of internet users, increasing smartphone penetration, customer appetite for convenience and bank’s need to cut costs
“At the same time, intense pressure on banking firms to minimize operating costs in order to stay competitive is also having a major bearing on uptake of digital banking solutions”

https://t.co/Yj2jr80Z6N
🌐 According to Mordor Intelligence, the Digital Lending Market is set to reach $ 587B by 2026, up from $ 311B in 2020

📈 For a CAGR of 11.9% and driven by the growing smartphone penetration, the need to digitise across the industry to cut costs

https://t.co/Y45GoHX0Kj
SoFi’s management is TIER-1

💸 Anthony Noto (CEO), Chris Lapointe (CFO) and Michelle Gill (GBL) are Goldman Sachs alumni

💻 Assaf Ronen (HoE), Clay Wilkes (co-Founder Galileo) and Lauren Webb (CMO) have worked at Amazon, Microsoft, Intuit, Galileo
💸 Financial Check 💸

📈 Net revenue reached $ 451m in 2019, up 87% YoY

· Sales are expected to reach $ 621m in 2020, up 38% YoY

📉 Ajd. EBITDA came in at a loss of $ 149m in 2019

· Adj. EBITDA loss is expected to contract to $ 66m in 2020
👇 THE BOTTOM LINE 👇

✅ SoFi aims to take advantage of the fragmented TIER-2 banking market by stealing customers with its easy to use and intuitive “one-stop-shop” offering
✅ This “one-stop-shop” strategy enables it to reduce customer acquisitions costs by cross-selling products and offering a central touch points for users

✅ Driven by the need for cost optimisation, banks have no other opportunity than to propose digital tools to their clients
✅ With Galileo, SoFi is ideally placed to take advantage of the rise of digital “NeoBanks” but also of the TIER-2 banks modernisation effort

✅ In the long term, SoFi is set to become hard to compete with as it has a lower CAC than its competitors, and supplies its competitors
🚩 Banks may be driven to develop their own backend in order to avoid “risky” competition from SoFi

🚩 SoFi’s sales slowed down in 2020 but projects an acceleration going into 2021

🔥 We have a starter stake in $IPOE (SoFi) 🔥
Disclaimer - This is not investment advice in any form and investors are responsible for conducting their own research before investing.

Sources

✑ Investor presentation

✑ Company website

✑ Valuates

✑ Forbes

✑ Mordor Intelligence

✑ ReportLinker

✑ TechCrunch
Hope you liked this thread!

✅ For more content, follow us on Twitter 🔥

✅ Want to get UNDER HYPED companies delivered straight to your inbox 📩 Don’t MISS IT 👇

https://t.co/lQ6ay1zmm2

More from Business

Corporate Machiavelli
Corporate Machiavelli
@corporatemach
THREAD:

Employees vs Employers

“We who toil for other people have all in some way been captured by pirates and sold into slavery.” –Law 24

It should be said plainly; employment is nothing more than the next step in the evolution of slavery.

The corporation you are employed by has a psychopathic level of indifference as to whether you live or die.

This is not Leftwing political rhetoric; it is a machiavellian reality you will have to contend with.

Your employer is not your ally; they are your adversary.

It is in your best interest for wages to be as high as possible, while it is in your employer’s best interest for wages to be as low as possible.
BUSINESS , AUTHOR
Anurag Singh
Anurag Singh
@anuragsingh_as
#PolicybazaarIPO Long thread: There is monetary printing by RBI, there is lending by banks & finally there is the Indian IPO. “Foreign owned” company with ~1 Bn investment is selling “Indian” unicorn to “savvy” Indians for $ 6.2 Bn. Want to know how this printing works? Let’s go-

The basics: Rs 6017 Cr being raised by new shares (Rs 3750) & re-selling (Rs 2267). Face value Rs 2 offered at Rs ~1000 per share is one of a kind. Who decides the price? Examine the valuation ladder below.
With ~$ 150 Mn invested till 2017, we see $ 525 Mn rushes in after 2018


So, a company valued $1 Bn in 2018 & $ 1.5 Bn in 2019 by key investors like Tencent, suddenly “needs money” in March 2021. Falcon Edge “invests” all of $ 75 Mn in March at valuation of $ 2.65 Bn.
Enter IPO bankers a couple of months later & they value the company at $ 6.2 Bn

Why does PolicyBazaar need $ 75 Mn just 6 months before IPO & give away 2.5 times in returns? And it doesn’t even use that money as the B/S reflects appx Rs 1000 Cr in cash lying around.
What kind of a favor is that? Why do they need US investment bank for this just before IPO?

Notice 50% rise in shareholding of promotors here & a 1: 500 bonus share issue. After all, how do you print money & still keep share price at “reasonable” Rs 1000?
Without bonus issue in June 2021, each share would have costed Rs 50,000. Heard of circular valuation?
BUSINESS , POLICYBAZAAR
Advertisement
James Hanson
James Hanson
@jameshanson87
$CCIV / LUCID MOTORS

DD Thread ⤵️


The $CCIV leadership team:


I will highlight who I believe are the key players.

Starting with Sir Jony Ive, who was the Chief Design Officer at Apple Inc for over 20 years. (Connections to Apple are never a bad thing..)


Andrew Leveris is the former CEO of The Dow Chemical company who also just happens to be a board member of, you guessed it - Lucid Motors, further supporting SPAC rumors.


As the former CEO of Ford, Mulally brings a wealth of motor industry experience to Churchill Capital and Lucid Motors.
BUSINESS
Javier Ruiz
Javier Ruiz
@javierruiz
WTO e-commerce #digitaltrade consolidated draft leaked by @bilaterals_org Some interesting things (1/n)

(2/n) Intermediary liability is included without brackets, normally meaning there is some agreement. The text is based on US proposals but has more extensive caveats and exceptions than existing US trade deals


(3/n) No agreement on cross-border data flows at WTO #digitaltrade consolidated text


(4/n) FWIW The UK's (and US) position on WTO #digitaltrade exceptions to the liberalisation of cross-border data flows vs the EU's. Guess which one is which


(5/n) Financial data may be included in the ban on forced localisation of computing facilities, but with many caveats. US regulators had pushed against this in the past but they seem to be losing the battle. Several alt texts. UK to bring more proposals.
BUSINESS
Modelio Equity
Modelio Equity
@Modelio_Sthlm
1. A company that has been brewing just outside our Top-5 for some time now is the electroporation (EP) company MaxCyte. Modelio assesses it as one of the best investments to capture the growing gene editing and gene therapy space, especially in allogeneic ex-vivo treatments.

2. We estimate that MaxCyte stands before a huge inflection point that will accelerate both growth and profitability. We have seen signs of the accelerating underlying activity by the fact that they in the last two years have added 9 of their 12 commercial agreements.

3. What makes MaxCyte unique compared to other “pick-and-shovel” businesses is their claim to milestones and royalties, something usually reserved for pharmaceutical companies.

4. As per the January update, MaxCyte has a potential pool of $950m in milestones, and a 2-3% (our estimates) of sales in royalties, that excludes licenses and consumables for the machines.

5. Reviewing the partners' pipelines, we think milestone revenues will unleash themselves in 2021 and beyond as they move further into clinical trials.
BUSINESS

You May Also Like

Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
ADI SHANKAR AND SRI TOTAKACHARYA

Adi Shankaracharya chose his disciple Totakacharya to be the first head of the Math at Joshimath.
The Narsingh Mandir (Mandir of Sri Narasimha) in Joshimath is one of the 108 Divyadesams and also the home of Badrinath during the winter months.


Totakacharya was earlier a boy named ‘Giri’ and a devout disciple of Adi Shankaracharya. Unlike others, he was not known to be an expert in Shastras but his dedication to his Guru was complete and he used to listen to His discourses with utmost faith and devotion.
@SriRamya21


One morning as Adi Shankara and his disciples were getting ready for the discourse, Giri was delayed. The other disciples urged their Guru to commence the lesson on Bramhsutra Bhashya telling him that Giri would anyway not be able to comprehend its deep meaning.
@RajeAiyer


Adi Shankar responded “नायमात्मा प्रवचनेन लभ्यो न मेधया” – Atman cannot be attained through discourses or mere intellect.
He,then, awakened the supreme knowledge in Giri.
Giri spontaneously composed: श्री शङ्करदेशिकाष्टकम् extolling his Guru’s grace.


Adi Shankaracharya granted sanyasa to Giri and gave him the name Totakacharya.
The story of how Giri became Totakacharya is a great example of the importance of faith and devotion in your Guru and not the mere knowledge of the Shastras.
@DetheEsha
ALL
Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
It’s underremarked upon that stablecoins accomplish basically all of the original design goals for Bitcoin qua a transactional mechanism (instant free value transfer anywhere), but that nobody cares about this because nobody ever cared about that part of the pitch.

“Why do people care about stablecoins then?”

A mix of “they encourage dollar-denominated liquidity in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and discourage withdrawal of the same” and “they’re good for money laundering.”

“But they make value transfer between exchanges much faster!”

This was a solved problem in traditional finance, too, mostly through the extension of credit. (It doesn’t matter how long settlement takes if there is sufficient trust to enable credit.)

The Bitcoin ecosystem is *positively allergic* to credit, so you have to call it a coin for them to accept it. And after you call it a coin they ignore everything the world has learned about credit, like risk management.

“Stablecoins aren’t credit!”

They’re pretty much exactly credit? A tether is a zero-coupon Bitfinex bond with a non-functioning call option. I
TECH
Advertisement
Mitesh Patel
Mitesh Patel
@Mitesh_Engr
How to sell option?
Here let me explain through simple math.
Say BN at 30000
30000 straddle trading at combine premium 800 ( based on current volatility)
Put at 400
Call at 400
You don’t know direction. Sold both.

If move will not come than both will decrease gradually.

At day end it will come down to 720-740 if move will not come. Difference is your profit.

Now case 2:
Move started.
At one points combine premium will start increasing.
Say 810.
Exit immediately. No need to do adjustment.
Let market settle.

Sell again straddle once market settle.
Now repeat same thing.

Straddle selling webinar over.
Good luck.

One can keep SL 550 for both strike to escape from sudden movement.
OPTIONSLEARNING , MITESHOPTIONS
Suhas S. Hardutt
Suhas S. Hardutt
@HarduttSuhas
THE BATTLE OF SARAIGHAT (1671)

Lachit Borphukan's humiliation of Aurangzeb.

The battle of Saraighat was a naval engagement fought on the Brahmaputra river near Saraighat between the M0ghul empire and Ahom kingdom in 1671.

Guts, resolve and glory!

(Elaborate thread)


Koch was a state situated between the dominions of M0ghuls and Ahoms. For Ahoms, it was a buffer state for keeping M0ghul territorial expansions at bay.(1)

Times changed when the ruler of the Koch kingdom, Nara Narayana passed away in 1587 resulting in Koch being divided into 2. Western Koch was ruled by his son Lakshmi Narayan and the eastern Koch by his nephew, Raghudev.(2)

Lakshmi Narayan formed an alliance with M0ghuls after which he attacked Parikshit, son of Raghudev, in 1602. Parikshit Narayan was defeated while his brother Bali Narayan took refuge in the Ahom Kingdom.(3)

The M0ghuls used it as a pretext to invade Ahom kingdom. The first battle between them took place in 1615 leading to a series of engagements in which both sides had their shares of ups and downs resulting in a stalemate.(4)
ALL
Michael Dearing
Michael Dearing
@mcgd
An irony of facebook's situation.

Sheryl got her MBA at Harvard. One of the most famous cases (Extra Strength Tylenol) in one of the most famous classes (Business History) she took: in 1982, someone put cyanide in Extra Strength Tylenol capsules and killed 7 people in Chicago.

What do you do when someone turns your product into a weapon? When they use the system you built to harm? James Burke, CEO of J&J, was shockingly open with the public, he pulled the product and made significant packaging changes to make product safer (but not tamper-proof).

He over-shared every step along the way re investigation, redesign, stood up as both CEO and human. The reintroduction of new Extra Strength Tylenol succeeded. Burke saved the brand.

But four years later it happened again. A killer put cyanide in the capsules, this time a woman in Yonkers died. Same CEO, Burke, pulled the product again, completely changed the form factor from capsule to caplet and relaunched *again*. It worked *again*. How'd they do that?

Burke (CEO) tapped J&Js goodwill bank account w/ the public. Two big withdrawals from that bank account in four years + 8 dead bodies! But his honesty, openness, humanity (choked up about the deaths more than once), humility kept the goodwill bank balance positive the whole time.
TECH