DNA Mumbai Anniversary: New-age entrepreneurs backed by digital prowess with the zest to take risks & build from scratch

The world is my oyster, proclaim countless millennials today. It has never been this exciting to dream big, actualise that dream, earn the cap of Co-Founder/CEO early on in life, crack complex problems, create jobs, make fast bucks, cash out and live the life of a millionaire. The last decade witnessed the rise of new-age entrepreneurs, who were backed by digital prowess and the zest to take risks and build from scratch ventures that are today at the forefront of innovation and digital disruption.

India will have 10,500 ‘’startups’’ by 2020, claims Nasscom, and generate over 250,000 jobs. But the true momentum to the startup sector has indeed trickled from four big guns that have raised the bar, grown by leaps and bounds, and garnered valuations upwards of $1 billion. When we say ‘’startups’’, we at once recall brands like Flipkart, Ola, Quikr or Paytm. “The entire perception of Indian startups has been a positive story globally thanks to unicorns like Flipkart, Ola and the like. Success achieved by these unicorns have shown other entrepreneurs that if he can, so can I,’’ says Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures. Leo Mavely, founder and CEO of healthtech startup Axio Biosolutions feels unicorns are essential for the growth of the sector, ‘’as they have attained great success by tapping the right market and introducing disruptive products and services.’’ It is therefore obvious that any dialogue on ‘’startups’’ will certainly feature the men behind the unicorns and big-shot investors like SoftBank Group and Premji Invest that have pumped up the industry as a whole.

Sachin Bansal: The Other Sachin 

Flipkart galvanised e-shopping in the country and accelerated growth for the e-commerce sector

Flipkart can be safely termed as the ‘’game-changer’’ for startups, as the era of new-age digitally-savvy ventures arguably  started in 2007, after Sachin Bansal quit his Amazon job to sell books online along with his IIT batchmate Binny Bansal with a mere investment of Rs. 4 lakhs. Today, Bansal’s endeavour has catalysed the growth of an entire sector. Flipkart didn’t merely mushroom into India’s top-notch e-commerce behemoth, but galvanised e-shopping in the country, acquired allied businesses, and accelerated growth for the e-commerce sector in India, which from being $10 billion in the 2007-11 period, jumped to $38.5 billion last year. Bansal and Flipkart this year, attracted interest from American retailer Walmart, which picked up a 77 percent stake for a whopping $16 billion. “The Flipkart acquisition alone has shown investors there is real money to be made if invested in from early days and by supporting the founders in the long run,” says Majumdar. Why just investors, even Bansal made some cool bucks. The high-profile entrepreneur is said to have pocketed upwards of $800 million post the Walmart deal, by selling his 5.5 percent stake, and exiting the company he co-founded.

Bhavish Aggarwal: CabMan

His Ola app has transformed taxi booking into a seamless experience with transparent pricing

Ola’’ is today synonymous with ‘’taxi’’ in India. But when Bhavish Aggarwal quit his Microsoft job to start the taxi aggregator, the market was highly disorganised, ridden with touts and pricing was opaque. A Bangalore to Bandipur taxi ride that went haywire sowed the Ola seed in Aggarwal’s mind.   

Today, his Ola app has transformed taxi booking into a seamless experience with transparent pricing, frequent deals and enhanced the comforts of inter and intra-city travel. 

Backed by innovative technology and a strong set of investors, primarily SoftBank, Aggarwal has gone on to consolidate Ola organically and via acquisitions, to pose a big threat to the San Francisco-based Uber. Aggarwal has grown the enterprise from being a marketplace for a just handful of cabs in Mumbai, to having over 450,000 vehicles at their disposal across 100 cities. In the $10 billion online cab-hailing sector in India, Ola and rival Uber now control 90 percent. 

Even as talks of Ola buying out Uber India flare up, Aggarwal is busy making inroads Down Under, with seven Aussie cities already in his kitty.

Pranay Chulet: Quikrrrrr

The brand has revolutionised the online classifieds market in the country

While making a film in the US, Pranay Chulet recruited the cast on Craiglist. But while hunting for a cast to shoot scenes in Delhi, he realised there wasn’t any Craiglist-like platform in India. Thus was born Quikr in 2008. Today, the brand has revolutionised the online classifieds market in the country and inducts a new generation of 30 million monthly unique visitors to the industry. Since the market was challenging, Chulet had to launch multiple innovative services like the missed call service to tap people with no internet access, a MSP (Maximum Selling Price) calculator to estimate a reasonable price for goods, an instant messenger type experience to enhance engagement between buyers and sellers, and the Quikr doorstep service to further encourage C2C transactions. ‘’We are now a collection of five transaction-driven marketplaces and this strategy has worked well for us. Our revenues have grown at a CAGR of over 100 percent in the five years ending FY18,” says Chulet. Quikr’s goal, says Chulet, is to continue doubling their business each year. “By the end of FY18, our key verticals like jobs, real estate and cars reached profitability, while more than doubling their revenues year-on-year. Deep inside, we believe, abhi toh party shuru hui hai.”

Vijay Shekhar Sharma: Paytm Karo

His dream is a cashless India and to bring half a billion Indians into the mainstream economy

Acontinuous tweaking of business strategy and lady luck shining bright overhead made Vijay Shekhar Sharma the hero of a real life rags-to-riches potboiler. The son of a small-town school teacher who struggled with English, is today ranked by Forbes as one of India’s youngest billionaires with a fortune of $1.7 billion. Sharma’s entrepreneurial acumen and innate talent was instrumental in re-shaping Paytm’’s business model from a payment service for telecom operators to a recharge service having a wallet licence, to taking on the onus of an e-commerce marketplace and consolidating its presence as a mobile wallet. 

The government’s demonetisation efforts paid richest dividends to Paytm’s business, which went from 125 million wallet customers pre-demonetisation, to 280 million wallet customers by November 2017, exactly a year post demonetisation.  Paytm is now valued at $9.4 billion, with 7 million daily transactions and 250 million registered users. Sharma has been an aggressive advertiser, taking on cricket sponsorship for Rs.203.28 crore and releasing Paytm ads with a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the digitisation icon. Sharma’s ‘’dream’’ is a “cashless India’’ and to ‘’bring half a billion Indians into the mainstream economy and build India’s first $100 billion firm.”

Masayoshi Son: Mr.MoneyBags

He is seeking to drive investments in Indian startups with a focus on IoT, robotics, AI

Behind every successful unicorn there is Son and Softbank…The Japanese business tycoon of Korean descent with a net worth of $23 billion is the hand that has pumped funds into Indian startups and helped create unicorns. From Yahoo! to Alibaba, Son’s money has been pooled into multiple big brands globally. The highly influential investor had targeted investing $10 billion in Indian startups across 10 years starting 2014, but has already invested $7 billion in four years’ time.  SoftBank has invested in Flipkart, Paytm, Ola, SnapDeal, Grofers, OYO, etc. with amounts ranging from $15 million to $2.6 billion (in Flipkart).  With his $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund, Son is seeking to drive investments in Indian startups with a focus on IoT, robotics, artificial intelligence. Son believes India is a land of vast opportunity and has stated that he wants to “support innovative companies that are clear winners in India because they are best positioned to leverage technology and help people lead better lives.”

Azim Premji: Premji Invest 

He wields a tremendous amount of influence over the sector and prominent startups have benefitted 

The quiet and unassuming Wipro Chairman wields a tremendous amount of influence over the startup sector. Courtesy the 12 year old Premji Invest, which manages assets worth over $3 billion and invests regularly in startups. Lenskart, PolicyBazaar, SnapDeal and Myntra are some of the prominent startups that have benefitted from Premji’s largesse. In fact, experts have stated that Premji’s Myntra investment of $25 million in 2014 was a clever move which has helped Premji Invest earn rich returns of over $130 million post the $16 billion Flipkart-Walmart deal, since Myntra was Flipkart-owned during the deal. Entrepreneurs feel grateful to the business tycoon for having invested in their niche ventures. “Investment in our company by Premji Invest (and others) enhanced our credibility and helped us acquire leadership in an unorganised market. By partnering with these investors, we were able to reach new markets and expand to UAE, introduce innovative products, set up state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. Funding from industry veterans helps startups to boost their operations, technology and expansion plans,’’ says PC Musthafa, co-founder of iD Fresh, that has received funding of $25 million from Premji Invest.