1947 Tech 🇮🇳: 82

Once a week newsletter: Insights on Tech, markets, startups, venture capital, and foreign investments in India

Aug 21, 2019

1. Three trends in India

Three trends that we are noticing in India:

Go-global from day one mindset
Indian operators are building companies in SEA (Singapore or Indonesia) for SEA
Founders are moving at a lightning speed

Earlier companies from India that had reached 1000+ employees would look to expand globally. But in recent times go-global from day one has emerged as a new mindset amongst the founders.

For example, Surge portfolio company InterviewBit Academy recently raised $20 million and the fresh proceeds will be used for expansion in India, as well as overseas markets such as Indonesia, the US, among others.

OYO of SEA: RedDoorz, the hotel management and booking platform founded by two former MakeMyTrip senior executives, has raised $70 million in its latest round of funding, led by Asia Partners, Rakuten Capital and Mirae Asset Naver Asia Growth Fund.

Finally, Bengaluru’s Bounce becomes world’s fastest-growing bike-sharing start-up.

Start-up clocks 60,000 rides per day; this puts it at par with global players such as scooter-rental companies Lime and Bird.

Bengaluru's Bounce becomes world's fastest-growing bike-sharing start-up

2. Facebook-backed Indian startup Meesho raises $125 million from Naspers

Only 10% of Indians speak English out of 1.3 billion.

So naturally, the next phase of growth will come from the cities beyond metropolitans and tier 1 cities.

And global giants get it.

Just in one week: Facebook invested in Meesho and Twitter invested in Sharechat

In fact, the next set of massive tech companies in India are built around the following theme:

Voice, Video, and Vernacular

Solving for the masses, the other 900 million Indians

Solving for Bharat 2.0 & Bharat 3.0 massive problems

Facebook-backed Indian startup Meesho raises $125 million from Naspers

3. Beyond metros, a whitespace with millions awaits us: Meesho’s Vidit Aatrey

The timing couldn’t have been any better. Great insights from someone who has done it himself.

Lessons from Vidita Aatrey, founder of Meesho on the Indian market and how to capture the masses, the other 900 million Indians?

Here we go:

Once people figure out the right model outside metros, the opportunity is so massive that you will have larger businesses from there than those in metros

India is not a single market, it is a lot of micro markets — that’s the biggest learning we’ve had over the last 3–4 years. In the metros, almost everyone speaks English, and their habits — food and clothing included — have converged.

In a small town in Tamil Nadu, however, people behave differently. They speak a different language and their tastes, in terms of fashion, are different.

This is the reason why products that serve the top 50 million people, who are somehow very homogenous, fail with these heterogeneous populations. Anyone building a business for the next 500 million users has to keep in mind that India is a heterogeneous market.

Beyond metros, a whitespace with millions awaits us: Meesho's Vidit Aatrey

4. private boom v/s public gloom

Excellent blog post on the current state of both public and private markets in India.

Must read.

private boom v/s public gloom

1947 Tech Newsletter 🇮🇳