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The Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries acquires 87.6% stake in Fynd, a seven-year-old Mumbai-based startup that connects physical retailers to online stores and consumers, for 2.95 billion Indian rupees (42, $ 33 million), both said in a brief statement late Saturday.
Founded in 2012, Fynd helps offline retailers sell their products directly to consumers through its online store, but also connect to other "demand channels," such as third-party e-commerce platforms , Amazon India, and Flipkart, owned by Walmart. .
More than 600 brands including Nike, Raymond, Global Desi and Being Human, and 9,000 stores are connected via the Fynd platform, Fynd co-founder Harsh Shah told TechCrunch in an interview. Many brands use Fynd products to increase sales in their own online business.
Since Fynd works directly with brands, it offers consumers a greater choice of items and new stocks, as well as faster delivery, Shah said.
Fynd website
Reliance Industries, which owns the country's largest retail chain, Reliance Retail, has been a Fynd customer for more than six years, Shah said. "Reliance manages some big brands in the country. 25 of our existing brands belong to them. Our Find Store product has helped their stores generate a lot of sales, "he said.
Fynd, who counts Google As one of its early investors, it will continue to operate its existing business and has the option of securing an additional one billion Indian rupees ($ 14 million) by the end of this year. late 2021 of Reliance Industries, said Shah. He refused to reveal the capital his company had raised before this week's announcement. According to Crunchbase, Fynd has collected about $ 7.3 million.
"Reliance takes a majority stake in Fynd, but ultimately, for us, it's like any other investor who arrives. We will continue to work separately, we have our own independent roadmap, and we have our own customers and products that we plan to develop. So things go on as is, "he said.
Fynd, which takes a small commission on each transaction made online, is already operationally profitable and expects to be fully profitable in the coming quarters, Shah said.
It will continue to develop and evolve its existing products, including OpenAPI, which allows merchants to quickly list their products in their own stores or on third-party sites and manage their inventory and sales.
Despite tens of billions of dollars in investments by Amazon India and Flipkart in India's e-commerce market in recent years, physical retail dominates sales in the country. But e-commerce companies in India are also growing.
The country's e-commerce space is expected to reach $ 84 billion by 2021, up from $ 24 billion in 2017; According to a recent study by Deloitte India and the Retail Association of India, India's retail market is estimated at $ 1.2 trillion by 2021.
Reliance Industries, led by Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in Asia (pictured above), also has its own plan to enter e-commerce. Earlier this year, Ambani announced that its telecom operators Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail were working on an e-commerce platform.
Reliance Jio, which began commercial operations in the second half of 2016, has recently become the country's largest telecommunications operator with more than 331 million subscribers at the end of June.
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