MakeMyTrip Founder, Deep Kalra, who’s additionally an lively angel investor in startups, believes there may be adequate cash available to fund right ideas and entrepreneurs in India, while the economy reels below the heavy effect of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I sincerely assume India could have a totally shiny destiny, COVID (-19) or not, going forward, due to the pleasant of marketers who’re developing and adequate availability of cash. So for proper marketers and proper pleasant plans etc, I assume there is adequate cash, there is no dearth of it,” Deep instructed YourStory Founder and CEO, Shradha Sharma, in past due August.
A poster boy for the homegrown net economic system and the Indian startup ecosystem, Deep highlighted how there are “such a lot of stories” of startups which have provide you with a brand new concept and in only multiple years have controlled to emerge as a “pressure to reckon with,” each withinside the B2C (business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business) space.
The 50-year-vintage entrepreneur-investor shared that he maintains to actively put money into startups and that a number of his pre-pandemic investments are “doing clearly nicely.”
“It’s thrilling to look how nicely Dunzo is doing. I assume Milkbasket too has completed clearly nicely, and with a bit of luck it’s going to augur nicely for them,” he said.
Deep invested Rs three crore in hyperlocal concierge app, Dunzo, in February as a part of its $30 million Series C funding. The platform which presently serves Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune and Jaipur has crossed 2 million month-to-month transactions. It has became worthwhile in Bengaluru, its headquarters, wherein it first added its offerings in 2015.
Hyperlocal transport startup, Milkbasket, which operates in Gurgaon, Noida, Dwarka, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad and Bengaluru closed a sparkling spherical of funding of $five.five million led through Inflection Point Ventures in June. The Gurugram-primarily based totally startup caters to over 1.three lakh families and targets to show worthwhile this year.
The pro net entrepreneur has additionally invested in homegrown short-video app, Mitron, which raised $five million in August as a part of its Series A financing spherical led through Nexus Venture Partners, only a month after elevating a seed spherical of Rs 2 crore. The Mitron app has were given greater than 39 million downloads at the Android Play Store on account that its release in April. The founders of Mitron, Shivank Agarwal and Anish Khandelwal, are each former era executives of India’s biggest on line journey reserving company, MakeMyTrip.
Deep is extraordinarily positive approximately India’s destiny as a startup economic system, notwithstanding the cutting-edge financial gloom the u . s . reveals itself in and believes the authorities is making the proper movements in assisting India’s startup ecosystem.
“I assume the pleasant of startups nowadays is really higher, greater evolved, greater mature than it used to be. I assume it is likely maturing each few years and getting higher and smarter and those are very committed, very clean approximately what they need to construct and the way they need to head approximately it.
“So I assume our destiny as a startup economic system is fantastic shiny and so the authorities’s in reality rightly positioned whilst they’re genuinely pushing this thru NITI Ayog and otherwise,” he said. NITI Aayog, the authorities’s coverage assume tank, has been given the undertaking of growing technological merchandise in partnership with the personal sector, as a way to permit India to “leapfrog” withinside the post-pandemic world.
