Mahindra Group joins the start-up bandwagon

The multi-national Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group is set to join the start-up bandwagon. The company, recently, announced that it will help aspiring entrepreneurs with seed-funding and incubation facilities. Mahindra Group which is involved in many sectors, from defence to automobiles, feels it is a natural step for them to help aspiring entrepreneurs.

“It is a very natural step for us to take on the task of incubating new-age startups within our sectors and possibly in entirely new areas as well,” Anand Mahindra, the group chairman told The Economic Times. He further added, “And happily, there is growing support in business academia for this notion that a ‘corporate garage’ may well be an ideal host environment for startups”.

Not only this, the conglomerate, after recognising the rise of the aggregator model such as Uber and Ola in personal transportation, recently launched an online platform named SmartShift. This facility will connect cargo owners and transporters which will enable them to work with each other. SmartShift has a mobile application, website and a dedicated call centre which cargo owners can access. SmartShift was launched in Mumbai and will be soon launched in many other cities and towns across India.

How it works?

Cargo owners who want to use this facility will first have to ‘create a job’ on the app, providing the date of the cargo pickup, starting point, destination, type of goods and other details. One can then choose if they want an ‘Open-body’ or ‘Closed-body’ vehicle for their cargo.

SmartShift offers three easy payment options, namely cash on delivery, payment in advance or come back for payment. Based on the job details, the app generates a ‘System Price’ to be paid by the cargo owner.

Many big multinationals are now realising the potential of start-ups leading to significant corporate investment and encouragement to entrepreneurs across the country.