Also in the letter:
■ SBM Bank India elevates Dipak Agarwal to deputy CEO
■ VCs get hands on in choosing startup CXOs
■ Chandrayaan-3 rover’s payload makes new discoveries
Amazon local revenues able to support India investments: Amit Agarwal
As Amazon completes a decade in India, senior executive Amit Agarwal said its ecommerce business in the country is generating enough revenue to support its investments. In an interaction with ET, he also spoke about the potential of the local market and competition.
India business boom: “Our ecommerce business is generating enough revenues that allow us to make the desired investments into infrastructure and logistics,” Agarwal, the company’s senior vice president for India and emerging markets, said.
While a bulk of the Seattle-based technology major’s earlier investments in India went into building logistics and seller infrastructure, the newer investments are going into technology and services to bring more shoppers online, he said.
‘On track’ to profitability: Agarwal felt confident that Amazon is “on track” to profitability in India and said the company has a certain timeline and a certain set of milestones to achieve before that happens.
“I think in the case of India, with hundreds of millions of customers who haven’t experienced shopping online, the cycle of investment will go on for a little bit, but you want to be in a state where you can sustain yourself.”
On India’s competitive market: Over the last 10 years, Amazon has competed with Walmart-owned Flipkart, and is now up against newer rivals like Meesho, Tata Neu and Reliance’s Jio Mart. But Agarwal is unfazed, and in fact welcomes it. “You would rather be in a segment where there’s competition. It means you’re doing something that people care about,” he said.
Seller outreach: On Thursday, Amazon announced opening up its fulfillment infrastructure to sellers and D2C brands, even if they aren’t selling on the platform. “There are those who prefer to sell on Instagram or their own websites, and we want to make sure that our capabilities are available to them no matter where they intersect with the customers,” he said.
Full Stack by Samidha Sharma: Who’s 2023’s model startup founder?
Hi, Samidha here. I am back with a new edition of Full Stack. Please keep the bouquets, brickbats and suggestions coming. You can mail me at samidha.sharma@timesgroup.com and follow me on Twitter @samidha.
A few weeks ago, Tata Group company Titan hogged the headlines when it bought a 27% stake in CaratLane (Titan has been a strategic investor since 2016). A cash exit for an Indian consumer internet entrepreneur is rare – more so when it comes as the broader industry is struggling to get the fundamentals right, and funding from risk investors has fallen precipitously. This got me thinking.
After 15 years of venture capital infusion into companies, who are the likely role models for young, fledgling entrepreneurs in India today?
When I started actively reporting on this sector around 2012, the first generation of local entrepreneurs, led by Flipkart founders Sachin and Binny Bansal, became the go-to reference point for young IITians. But a decade and multiple economic cycles later, the Indian market is throwing up a diverse set of role models.
Dipak Agarwal elevated to deputy CEO of SBM Bank India
SBM Bank India, the local subsidiary of Mauritius-headquartered SBM Bank, has elevated Dipak Agarwal to the position of deputy chief executive officer and overall head of business.
Change of guard: Agarwal gets elevated from his role as head of corporate banking at a time when the bank is under the regulatory scrutiny.
There is also a strong buzz in banking circles that Sidharth Rath, the current chief executive officer of SBM Bank India, might not get an extension after his tenure ends next year.
What the bank has to say? The foreign bank, though, refuted such claims. “As per the RBI’s approval, the current tenure of Sidharth Rath, as the MD & CEO expires in November 2024. Hence the question of extension of tenure is premature and factually inaccurate as of now,” it said in a statement. Rath continues to head the bank currently.
A little background: The bank works with around 30 fintechs for a host of services. Like Slice for prepaid cards, Niyo for forex cards, IndMoney for international remittances, Razorpay for corporate cards and others.
What is the problem? With some of these fintech partnerships, the bank pushed the envelope on regulatory boundaries, which had irked the RBI. In June last year, the RBI stopped prepaid cards from being loaded with a credit line. SBM was the sponsor bank for many fintechs who were offering this product. In January this year the regulator asked the bank to stop all outward remittance offerings, thereby impacting the likes of Niyo and others.
Unhappy RBI: Multiple sources in the know told ET that the RBI was not very happy with the way the bank often allowed its fintech partners to operate.
“For a foreign bank, the senior management really needs to keep the regulator happy by abiding by regulatory norms very closely, but in this case that did not happen,” said a top fintech executive who has worked with the bank for multiple use cases.
VCs get more involved in CXO search at early-stage startups
Venture capital (VC) investors in early-stage Indian startups, are pushing for greater involvement in the recruitment process of key management positions, after several governance- and compliance-related issues have marred new-age companies.
Reformed approach: Investors are rooting for an approach that is more structured, institutionalised and professionally executed, Ankur Pahwa, managing partner of venture capital fund PeerCapital, told ET. Earlier, investors would give much more leeway to the founders for the first one year, which is no longer the case. Pranav Pai, managing partner at 3one4 capital, told ET that his firm is much more involved on startups’ boards and board committees.
Byju’s a lesson: Alleged misselling of products and lack of financial scrutiny at edtech firm Byju’s was a big lesson for many. An investor told ET that the lack of a CFO in Byju’s C-suite for more than a year till April this year, made investors sceptical and cautious.
The startup ecosystem has been caught up in a series of alleged fraud and gaping holes in corporate governance practices, at a time when funding has gone downhill. Companies like Mojocare, GoMechanic, Trell, BharatPe and Zilingo have been in the news for alleged financial irregularities or governance lapses.
Chandrayaan-3: How different is south from rest? Rover to answer
Since the Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully achieved a landing on the south pole of the moon, its Pragyan rover has been trying to find answers to many questions. What are lunar soil and rocks made of in the south polar region? How is it different from other highland regions?
Probing the moon: The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) onboard the rover was deployed to observe the lunar sample, the Indian Space Research Organisation said on Thursday. Later in the day, it announced that the first measurements of the lunar plasma environment over the South Pole region were carried out.
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Indian enterprises are expanding public cloud presence: EY-FICCI | A report by EY and FICCI titled “India’s cloud and data revolution” found that 78% organisations already have more than 30% data on cloud, and 58% are focusing on new workloads for modernisation initiatives.
Garena’s Free Fire returns to India in new avatar after February 2022 block: Garena’s Free Fire, a battle royale game where multiple players fight each other in a set location to “survive”, was one of the most popular online games in India before it was blocked, according to executives in the gaming industry.
Generative AI moving tech outside IT departments: Google Cloud CEO | Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is making functions such as marketing and human resources adopt technology, which, in turn, is expanding the overall addressable market, according to Google Cloud chief executive Thomas Kurian.
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ She sacrificed her youth to get the tech bros to grow up (Wired)
■ Anonymous Sudan hacks X to put pressure on Elon Musk over Starlink (BBC.com)
■ IBM promised to back off facial recognition — then it signed a $69.8 million contract to provide it (The Verge)
