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.
Published by Mukul on September 7, 2009
in General.
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TiE Delhi has extended an offer to Venturewoods community for their annual flagship event - TiE Connect (18th & 19th Sep)
1. First two people will get a free invitation for the entire event
2. All will be able to avail TiE membership rates for the event (Rates offered to TiE members are subsidized as compared to non members).
To avail both the offers - people have to mail to Manish Joshi (manish@tienewdelhi.org; 9971766455). First two - will get free offer from TiE
Please refer to the event site: http://tiecon-delhi.org/index.asp for more details.
Hi All,
I have heard speakers, panelists and entrepreneurs saying lack of angel financing as a major gap in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem. At Canaan, we have always tried best to participate in the start up ecosystem. This year, we are contemplating to initiate a dialogue with angel investors in a more systematic manner. In this regard, I would like to reach out to angel investors on this forum for suggestions on the nature and form of this dialogue.
I would also love to hear challenges faced by angel investors while making investment decisions or working with companies. They can be in areas of deal sourcing, regulatory visibility, network in corporate groups, working with the companies after investment etc.
I would also request start ups to send me names of their own angel investors with contact address and I would reach out to them individually. Keep viewing this forum for more on this and you can write me at mukul.singhal@gmail.com
Regards,
Mukul
If these economic jolts of last few weeks are called recession; I am pretty amused by it.
- Pleasantly amused by my all brokers (companies like ICICI Direct, Kotak) sending me mailers explaining different plans and simple logic behind them. None of them cared a quarter back. Last year it was a “take it or leave it” attitude.
- Pleasantly surprised that companies are talking about online, mobile, low cost models, leveraging technology etc etc. A quarter back, everybody was in a land grab mode - open as many outlets as possible, hire as many people as possible
- Pleasantly surprised when I went to my school back at ISB. Students’ expectations seem to be with rest of the world. An year back - everybody was dreaming for a Cr job
I think two main +ive developments have happened:
1.) Businesses are willing to spend time with their customers. There is a thought of “Customer Retention”.
2.) Cost of doing the business - from real estate cost, talent cost etc has come down.
Overall, I think lot of arrogance, which comes with growth have moderated. I understand that a recession also brings lot of pain (I lost my entire savings of last year) but I think it’s necessary to set things right for further growth. Thoughts? Comments?
-Mukul
Published by Mukul on September 15, 2008
in General.
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NASSCOM has extended discounted entry fee for the VentureWoods community for its upcoming NASSCOM EmergeOut Conclave 2008 scheduled for 29th Sep 2008.
Please find attached the registration form. Please email to avinash@nasscom.in for any clarifications.
Second episode of TiE Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge would be aired on CNBC TV18
on:
Saturday – 26th July – 1:30 PM
AND
Sunday – 27th July – 9 AM; 1:30 PM; 6 PM
I am happy to share that we have led an investment round of $6MN in UnitedLex with Helion. UnitedLex is a legal consulting and outsourcing firm. Sahad has covered some numbers on broad KPO market in his posts.
Since last 12-18 months, we came across many companies in the broad KPO market - Legal Outsourcing, Financial Analytics, Market Research etc. We believe that ability to scale and sustain growth will become a key success factor in the KPO space. While on sales side, one needs a good sales engine which can close deals in the competitive and fragmented US market. W.r.t delivery, you need ability to drive efficiency by bringing more and more processes on a technology platform. UnitedLex has been able to excel both on sales and delivery front and we hope to help build this into a big business.
-Mukul
The play out time for The TiE- Canaan entrepreneur challenge are as follows:
Saturday: 1.30pm
Repeat on Sunday: 9.30am and 10.30pm
This Saturday the 1st episode goes on air. There will be a total of 3 episodes at these times.
-Mukul
TiE Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge 2008 was concluded on Saturday, 5th July.
The winners of the Challenge are:
Equitas – A microfinance company, which started 6 months back with great management team. They have been able to innovate around processes to scale very fast in this business.
Druvaa Systems – It’s a backup company focusing at laptops and handhelds.
Iken – A company with core IP in analytics and is applying that to storefronts (web and mobile) to present the “right catalog” to each customer.
Overall, it was an exciting series and pretty enjoyable interacting with all the companies. I think feedback from participants, if they are reading this entry would be valuable.
The inside working of series would be aired by CNBC later this month. Due to lack of any other communication platform, I’ll inform here on the dates.
Today, RBI took another incremental step in defining Mobile Payments in India. The bank has published draft guidelines for Mobile Payments - “Mobile Payments in India – Operative Guidelines for Banks” . It’s encouraging that steps are taken in recognizing the industry and putting standards around it. However; it seems like a cautious approach. My observations:
RBI has defined Mobile Payments as
• Exchange of Information on mobile – Balance Enquiry, Statements etc
• Payments done involving mobile
RBI has acknowledged Banks as an important partner (since banks are liable for KYC norms) in offering mobile services and therefore, such services are restricted to KYC/AML compliant instruments – Bank Accounts, Credit/Debit Cards
Implications:This would bring services like eWallet / mWallet / Store value cards under RBI scanner and I see a regulatory risk in such businesses
The bank has recognized the long term goal of mobile payments to enable Peer to Peer (or Peer to Business) money transfer. However; RBI has also limited this scope to bank accounts.
Implications:Going back to my above point; I think businesses like Paypal might not pass regulatory hurdle in India. All operators & service providers have to partner with banks to enable payments involving mobile. I also don’t see any hope for relaxing this in future.
RBI has also raised the entry barriers for new entrants. Banks have to take board approval for offering such services to their customers. It would mean longer sales cycle – good for existing players but bad for new ones.
We have been following payment space from last some time and it looks interesting to us. I have also seen some case studies in geographies similar to India. In my opinion, two top most success factors in this industry would be:
• A strong use case to drive user adoption – In all success case studies, I have seen there is one use case which compels customer to try mobile payments. It can be mobile recharge, peer-to-peer money transfer, ticketing for mass transit system etc etc
• It would need active involvement of banks and mobile operators. While banks provide the backend payment infrastructure (& regulatory issues around payments); operators are best partners to acquire customers.
If you want to read technologies related to Mobile Payments in India, find them here
I would be happy to discuss and understand what new payment start ups are doing in Mobile Payments
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