I was reading Urban Company’s DRHP, and it hit me hard when I saw "REDSEER" mentioned in there. I’ve seen REDSEER in the IPO papers of so many recent startups, I did a quick 15min search through all 25 of them from the last 3yrs. And guess, what, 85%+ of the startups paid Redseer to enrich their DRHPs! - Be it Paytm or smaller competitor Mobikwik. Zomato or rival Swiggy - Or Nykaa, Delhivery, Mamaearth, Go Digit, Ola Electric, Firstcry or CarTrade And now Urban Company has also joined the list. .. But this also makes me wonder: Are there no competitors? Is it sort of a monopoly? And is that good? Unlike McKinsey, Bain, or BCG, Redseer’s clients are mostly startups. I am not saying that Redseer folks are bad. But, how do we know if what Redseer puts out in those DRHPs is reliable and unbiased? After all, incentives are better aligned if Redseer just publishes stuff that makes the DRHP of its paying startup client come out more attractive to the investors. Right? .. And worse, there are no protections or guardrails. What Redseer publishes, even if deliberately biased and influenced, can always be claimed to have been the outcome of their research, which one may or may not agree with. SEBI can’t hold Redseer accountable. Thus, it sort of has a free hand to play by the wishes of the IPO going startups. And this sort of a risky territory for investors who rely on DRHP to assess whether to invest or not. What do you think?
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