Bengaluru, March 26, 2018: Flipkart, India’s leading e-commerce marketplace, today announced it is launching a venture fund to back early-stage startups in the country, to help support the ecosystem to build innovative solutions for the next wave of internet users. The fund’s investments will target budding companies working in areas related to e-commerce, FinTech, payments and complementary spaces. The objective of the fund is to build the ecosystem with world class founders and ideas.
With over 400 million internet users, tech adoption in India is at an inflection point, and millions of people from Tier II and III cities and villages are expected to join the digital bandwagon in the next few years to lead on-demand lifestyles. The existence of some barriers in this journey related to trust, affordability, access etc., are some of the friction points that startups are trying to solve through innovations here in the country.
On this major initiative, Group CFO, Flipkart Emily McNeal said, “We are proud of the fact that as a homegrown company, Flipkart’s innovations have helped create much of the ecosystem on which the Indian e-commerce industry has thrived over the past decade, be it in supply chain and logistics, after sales and support, or technology. Those efforts set the stage for the growth of e-commerce in the country, and we’re seeing startups today trying to solve unique challenges that could help bring millions more into the digital fold, helping contribute to the ‘Digital India’ program. With this initiative, we’re delighted to support such innovative early-stage startups that are working on next-gen technology in & around our ecosystem. The aim is to seed innovation that is good for India and which promotes digital inclusion in a variety of spaces, by enabling startups to focus on bringing their ideas to life and scaling them.”
