It is for the first time that Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani is investing heavily in an e-commerce startup. The venture, namely 10i Commerce Services, helps small traditional shops fight online and organised retailers with the use of technology.
10i Commerce Services is now aiming to expand quickly across hundreds of towns and cities in the country after operating in a quiet manner for over a year. According to sources, it has so far raised Rs 25-30 crore from Nilekani, who as of now is the sole investor in the startup with a minority stake.
Though Nilekani and 10i co-founder Amit Sharma refused to comment on funding, they confirmed their association. This is Nilekani’s largest investment in a startup since he had pumped around $7.5 million in Sedemac, a company that builds controls for small engines and power trains.
As it plans to scale up now, 10i Commerce Services is also looking to bring in investors other than Nilekani. Its directors include Aadhaar project architect Pramod Varma and former L’Oreal executive Jagdish Kini.
Founded in early 2015 with co-founder Apoorva Jois, its new technology platform ShopX will be empowering traditional small retail stores at a time when they are facing disruption from new-age e-commerce firms.
Sharma said, “Technology was always a passion. I always wanted to use technology to solve problems for India at a large scale. The ambition was always to reach the masses. We always wanted to do something that reaches hundreds of millions of people, not the elite few people who stay in large cities, who have access to a lot more.”
Nilekani also confirmed that 10i was the “stealth mode” startup that he has been helping over the course of the past year.
In an interview, Nilekani said, “I was reluctant to get involved at first, but they kept cajoling me. And, as I looked deeper at what they were trying, I thought it was extremely interesting. What 10i is trying to do with ShopX is provide the traditional, small retailer with the same level of technology, logistics, sophistication and supply which e-commerce or organised retail gives.”
“To me, a big part of what’s going to happen in the next 10 years is the formalisation of the economy where the entire informal sector, be it small businesses or individuals who are out of the system, will become part of the system,” Nilekani added.
Among the companies he has backed are Team Indus, which is aiming to land a rover on the moon; robotics firm Systemantics; trucking and logistics startup 4Tigo; crowd-funding platform Lets-Venture and Sedemac.
