As we announced our investment in MotorExchange; I thought to bounce my views on broader B2B plays. In last couple of years, I have noticed two broad growth challenges in Indian internet start ups:

1.) Last mile penetration – This is function of internet penetration in the country and the growth is still incremental. We have seen few services scaled up in India.
2.) Payment Infrastructure – This is a big pain point.

However; I have seen good traction in b2b plays in last 9-12 months. Businesses like FlightRaja, ItzCash have scaled up nicely. Observation is that a large number of services and products like travel tickets, hotel bookings, insurance payments, investment products, and real estate brokerage are delivered through local neighborhood entrepreneurs. Though this ecosystem is fragmented and inefficient (in few cases) it solves the problem of last mile distribution and payment collection. I think that there can be possible opportunities in organizing this unorganized market by providing platform driven services to them. If there is a value proposition, small businesses are willing to spend money and invest in a computer with Internet connection.

There are B2B businesses in areas of logistics, commerce, auction exchanges, assisted commerce, and financial products distribution, which are seeing good traction. These platforms are helping fragmented businesses to increase their efficiency, sales, and customer retention. The challenge here is to reach the fragmented channel and there can be a good offline component to such services.

Any thoughts? or similar businesses?

I would love to meet entrepreneurs who are in similar b2b space and understand their businesses.

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