Indian fintech entrepreneur Nithin Kamath

Global IndianstoryNithin Kamath: How this fintech entrepreneur went on to become one of the richest Indians

Entrepreneurship

Nithin Kamath: How this fintech entrepreneur went on to become one of the richest Indians

Written by: Global Indian

(September 7, 2021) He was all of 17 when he was first introduced to the world of finance and trading. Rather taken in by the whole concept of trading, Nithin Kamath spent the next 12 years doing just that. By the time he had graduated from engineering college, he’d earned a sizeable amount of wealth… only to lose it all soon after. Refusing to give up, he soldiered on and continued to trade during the day and worked at a call center during the nights. The tide finally turned when he met a high net worth individual who handed him a cheque and asked him to manage his money.

So, we just got our in-principle approval for our AMC (MF) license. I guess now comes the hard part. https://t.co/g35YH60ksC

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) September 1, 2021

By 2010, he’d garnered enough confidence and funds to launch his own startup – Zerodha, a retail online stock broking company – in association with his brother Nikhil. Ever since, the startup has been changing the way young India invests in stocks. The Bengaluru-headquartered company offers retail and institutional brokerage, currencies and commodities trading, mutual funds, and bonds. With an active client base of over 3.5 million, Zerodha is the largest retail stockbroker in India, beating even traditional brokerage firms such as ICICI Securities and HDFC Securities. In 2020 Zerodha became one of the rare profitable fintech companies to attain unicorn status and the 42-year-old Nithin made his debut on the Forbes list of India’s 100 richest. His net worth is estimated at $1.55 billion.

Nithin and Nikhil Kamath founded Zerodha

Journey to the top

Born in a Konkani family in Shivamogga, Nithin was raised in Bengaluru by a veena teacher mother and a Canara Bank manager father. Growing up in a neighborhood filled with active traders, Nithin was first initiated into stock broking at the age of 17. He was rather taken in by the whole system of making money through stocks and soon realized that he had a penchant for it too. He began actively trading ever since and continued to do so through his college years Bangalore Institute of Technology. By the time he’d graduated he’d earned a handsome profit. But that’s when things went south.

Zerodha in its early days; Nithin Kamath (extreme left)

He’d borrowed money to trade and ended up blowing his trading account and lost a lot of money. To make up for the debt he took up a call center job that he worked at for four years even as he continued to trade during the day. On his website, Nithin writes, “I quit my job when I met the first person who asked me to manage their portfolio.”

By 2006, he had become a franchisee of brokerage firm Reliance Money to start a formal advisory business. Around this time, he was joined by his brother Nikhil, who Nithin claims is a better trader than he was. With Nikhil handling trading, Nithin figured he could set aside some time to build a brokerage firm that they wanted. When the markets crashed in 2008, several people suffered heavy losses, but Nithin had managed to make some money. By 2010, the brothers took the plunge and set up Zerodha.

Hustling to succeed

The idea for the startup came about when Nithin felt the need for a platform that offered people a seamless trading experience. He also believed that people needed a platform to educate them on the different investment options available. “With Zerodha, we were the first to introduce a flat fee model (a maximum of ₹20 per trade), helping traders save upto 90% of brokerage charges compared to the exorbitant percentage fees which was common at the time,” Nithin writes on his website, “In addition, we offered this single pricing plan to all our clients unlike the then incumbent players who had opaque offerings for different groups of clients. While we started from zero, this transparency slowly got us attention on online communities and via word of mouth.”

The operations which initially focused on day traders have now evolved to cater to long-term investors. The company began as a completely bootstrapped venture and has so far not required any external funding; it has been thriving despite the pandemic with people making a conscious effort to begin their investment journeys in these uncertain times. The platform has seen a 100% growth in concurrent users and won the NSE Retail Broker of the Year in 2018.

In addition to this, Nithin and Nikhil also founded investment management firm True Beacon which is aimed at ultra-high net worth investors and operates on a zero-fee model.

Giving Back

To empower retail traders and investors, Zerodha runs a number of open online educational and community initiatives. Varsity, is a learning module to educate young investors looking to explore the world of trading; it also has an active forum (Trading Q&A) for traders and investors to discuss stock ideas.

Our focus at @RainmatterOrg is to help create green jobs, livelihoods & help preserve the environment using sustainable agri practices. In that journey, we're super delighted to join @madhuchandansc & @organicmandya on their mission to change farming & improve lives of farmers1/8 pic.twitter.com/2lidyVWpJw

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) September 3, 2021

In January 2021, Nithin set up the Rainmatter Foundation for which he set aside $100 million. The Foundation supports grassroots individuals and organizations working on solutions for climate change. A special emphasis is also laid on afforestation and ecological restoration activities. In an interview with YourStory, Nithin said, “I have had a problem with the concentration of wealth, where a small bunch of people have access to a high amount of wealth. It is time that these people do something to give back to society.”

Name*

Email*

Name*

Email*

0 Comments

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Published on 07, Sep 2021

Share with

ALSO READ

Rohan Seth: The Indian American entrepreneur behind the success of Clubhouse and part of Silicon Valley’s Big Boys club

(September 29, 2021) When the Clubhouse app released in April 2020 it made waves across the globe. The social audio app encouraged users to communicate in audio chat rooms that could accommodate groups of thousands of people. The invitation-only social media app gained traction early on in the pandemic when people realized the need for human interaction like never before. The app made audio chic and became the go-to platform for the world’s celebrities and billionaires to engage with a global audience. Some of the app’s most noted users include the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Within a year of raising funding, Clubhouse went on to become a unicorn... and the man behind it all is the Indian-American entrepreneur Rohan Seth, who co-founded the company along with Paul Davidson. Incidentally, Seth had faced a string of failures before he decided to give it one last shot with Clubhouse. The app clicked and today, Seth has been propelled into the big league. He’s one of the few Indian Americans helming one of Silicon Valley’s most successful startups. According to Fortune, Seth has been going nonstop since early 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic forced people to stay home and the Clubhouse service exploded in popularity. His work

ay, Seth has been propelled into the big league. He’s one of the few Indian Americans helming one of Silicon Valley’s most successful startups. According to Fortune, Seth has been going nonstop since early 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic forced people to stay home and the Clubhouse service exploded in popularity. His work has gotten him noticed, and this 37-year-old Global Indian also featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list.

[embed]https://twitter.com/rohanseth/status/1415429332994969602?s=20[/embed]

Indian roots

Born in Patna, Seth grew up in Delhi where he did his schooling. In 2002, at the age of 18, he moved to the US to do his Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Stanford University following which, he also obtained his Masters in Management Science and Engineering from the same university. As an intern at Stanford, Seth designed and built a video bookmarking tool to support distance learning and offline class interaction for Stanford Online. Using this tool, students could bookmark sections of the class video, add their notes and share them with other students or their instructor.

Indian American entrepreneur Rohan Seth

Upon graduating from Stanford in 2006, Seth bagged his first job with Google where he was an early member of its mobile team, working on its Location product and testing concepts like Google Latitude, nearby friend alerts, and location-enabled chat status. His work at Google also included voice access to email and calendar, which probably laid the foundation for the voice-led Clubhouse. Nearly six years after he joined Google, he quit the company to plunge into entrepreneurship and launched Memry Labs in 2014. The corporate world wasn’t for him in the long run. “I have always been one of those people who really enjoyed building things,” he told The Vertical in an interview.

Memry Labs, a social communication platform was later acquired by Opendoor, where Seth led product growth for over two years, before finally launching Clubhouse with Davidson, whom he had met through a mutual friend in 2011. While Clubhouse was a hit, according to Business Insider, Seth and Davidson had at least nine failed apps between them, including Talkshow, their first collaboration and Clubhouse’s predecessor. What made Clubhouse click was the fact that it brought access to free speech and made global power figures more accessible to audiences.

Clubhouse also launched its Creator First accelerator program which helps aspiring creators monetize their shows. The app’s resounding success prompted other platforms to launch their own audio apps, such as Twitter’s Spaces and Spotify’s Greenroom.

[caption id="attachment_11806" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Rohan Seth co-founded Clubhouse with Paul Davidson[/caption]

Initially an iOS-only app, Clubhouse soon launched on Android as well and more than one million Indians downloaded it from Google Play. Interestingly, in India Clubhouse rooms include prayer recital groups as well as rooms dedicated to playing Antakshari.

Giving Back

Indian American entrepreneur Rohan Seth

Seth met his wife Jennifer Fernquist, a Canadian national, when he was at Google. The couple welcomed their daughter Lydia in 2019; Lydia was born with a rare genetic mutation called KCNQ2 that causes severe mental and physical impairments. On his Medium page Seth writes, “We were told her disease was too rare, and there was no treatment, but neither is true.” Since, Lydia has been undergoing gene-silencing treatments and Seth is now determined to fight to give her and children like her a shot at a brighter future. Seth and his wife founded Lydian Accelerator, a non-profit group, to design customized treatments for children with genetic disorders. The Accelerator’s goal is to find medical treatments that traditional pharm giants may overlook because of their rarity. Taking cues from the tech industry, Seth aims to open-source and make free genetic data, processes and protocols that are required to develop game-changing personalized treatments for children with gene mutations like Lydia.

Follow Rohan Seth on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Reading Time: 5 mins

Atul Satija: The social entrepreneur who gave up a lucrative corporate career for poverty alleviation

(September 23, 2021) The IMF recently forecast that India is emerging as one of the fastest growing major economies in the world. While that is certainly a reason to cheer, there is a scenario that one can’t ignore – the damage to the economy due to the pandemic has had far reaching effects. Over 230 million individuals fell below the national minimum wage poverty line, according to a report by the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University (APU). And it is to address issues such as the widespread poverty in India that individuals like 42-year-old Atul Satija, founder of The/Nudge Foundation and founder 2.0 of GiveIndia, have been working towards poverty alleviation. In his LinkedIn profile, Satija writes, “Every human being can live a dignified life out of poverty, and it’s well in our collective means to achieve that goal. Within our lifetime.” A philosophy he deeply believes in and has been working towards ever since he gave up a 17-year-long career in the corporate sector to dive headlong into social entrepreneurship. Humble beginnings Born in a lower middle class Chandigarh home, Satija grew up watching his government employee father and school teacher mother go out of their way to help extended family who

fetime.” A philosophy he deeply believes in and has been working towards ever since he gave up a 17-year-long career in the corporate sector to dive headlong into social entrepreneurship.

Humble beginnings

Born in a lower middle class Chandigarh home, Satija grew up watching his government employee father and school teacher mother go out of their way to help extended family who were of modest means. The family’s financial status made Satija want to study well and earn good money, but his father’s outlook also inspired him to help people. So, after graduating in engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Satija worked with companies such as Infosys and Samsung before doing his Masters from Indian School of Business. He then worked with Adobe for two years before joining Google as the head of business development first in India and then for the Japan and Asia Pacific markets. In 2010 he moved to San Francisco to join InMobi as its Chief Business Officer where he helped scale the organization from a small startup to a global leader in mobile advertising.

When the social sector beckoned

Throughout his career though, Satija would make it a point to volunteer during the weekends with a nonprofit in Gurugram. But it never felt enough. "I was working with Google then. Few months into volunteering, I realized it was the social sector that I wanted to work in over the long term – I was looking for meaningful work and potential for impact,” he told the Global Indian in an exclusive chat.

[caption id="attachment_9222" align="aligncenter" width="581"] Indian social entrepreneur Atul Satija Atul Satija[/caption]

He found that his weekend volunteering kept him from contributing to society as much as he’d wanted to. By 2015, he had quit his corporate job to set up his own startup in the social sector space. “In 2015, I started my journey with The/Nudge Foundation to work towards poverty alleviation,” he says, adding, “The journey has been challenging, understanding the layers of the development sector, grassroot realities and then creating innovative solutions to reach our goals. The journey has also been one of purpose, meaning and satisfaction. I truly believe our generation can eradicate extreme poverty in India, given the resources and talent available now for this work.”

A journey that fulfills

When he began his journey with The/Nudge, Satija spent a few months working with various communities across Bengaluru and Delhi and narrowed down on skill development through gurukuls as their first intervention area. They then began looking for grants, which is when Nandan Nilekani, former CEO of Infosys, supported them with a seed grant of $200,000. “Being our very first grant, it was an important milestone for the entire team. This was quickly followed by a series of partners coming forward to support our work including Mphasis, Cisco, Tata Trusts etc. Similarly graduating the first batch of 45+ students from our Gurukuls with 100% placements was also something that reinforced our approach and belief, and allowed us to stay focused in growing both our programs and impact aspirations,” says Satija.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjV-Sko6sVg[/embed]

In 2017, Satija and Venkat Krishnan, founder of GiveIndia, happened to have a conversation where they discussed working through funding challenges that nonprofits face through a tech platform. The two realized their goals and visions were aligned and soon Satija was brought on board as GiveIndia’s Founder 2.0. “The work at both The/Nudge Foundation and GiveIndia is for the larger purpose of poverty alleviation but the approaches are very different and complementary in India’s development journey,” explains Satija.

An evolving philanthropic culture

Over the years though, Satija has seen philanthropy and the concept of giving back in India evolve. The pandemic has increased the scale of giving by organizations as well as individuals and foundations and philanthropists are now playing a crucial role in strengthening the work being carried out in the development sector. “Digitization has increased connectivity among people and communities. With digitization making giving convenient, donors have increasingly become more forthcoming. In the pandemic, people have given more than they did before. Additionally, the Corporate Social Responsibility laws requiring organizations to give 2% of their profits has increased donor participation in the societal challenges,” he says.

So far, The/Nudge has been working towards addressing livelihood issues but is also aware of other areas that need to be supported such as education, public health etc. “Poverty is a wicked problem - complex, multilayered and multifaceted. We are focused on livelihoods as our primary area of work, and look at solutions that tackle the income in the hands of the poor by providing skilling and job placement, financial security, and social mobility."

Work during the pandemic

The past year has been about addressing the increased socio-economic concerns that the pandemic has raised. The need of the hour for the Foundation was to work towards efficient mobilization of aid to reach more and more of the needy population. “While GiveIndia has been working tirelessly to save lives, The/Nudge has geared huge efforts towards saving livelihoods and empowering the social welfare ecosystem, through its multiple initiatives across our three impact streams – Centre for Rural Development, Centre for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Centre for Social Innovation," says Satija, adding, “We launched Asha Kiran, which aims to serve 5 lakh poor households by 2025. We launched Indian Administrative Fellowship, to aid influx of talent into the development sector and to influence public policy and strategy. We are supporting other Social Enterprises through our incubator/accelerator. Our skilling and employment program has gone online and witnessed more enrolments than ever before, to help in economic empowerment of youth.”

[caption id="attachment_9223" align="aligncenter" width="377"] Indian social entrepreneur Atul Satija Atul Satija[/caption]

In April 2021, GiveIndia relaunched its flagship giving collective that began in April 2020 – India COVID Response Fund (ICRF) to meet the rising demands of the second wave. The organization mobilized aid in the form of oxygen cylinders and oxygen concentrators to those in urgent need and help families in financial distress. “We also worked closely with several NPOs to deliver ration and food relief into the heart of communities where it was needed the most.”

During the second wave, GiveIndia’s ICRF managed to deliver:

40,000 oxygen concentrators and cylinders at hospitals and to individuals at homes
279 districts of 25 States and 2 UTs supported through oxygen intervention
50 oxygen generation plants are being installed across the country
Over 87,000 diagnostic and wellness kits, 18,000 oximeters and 27,000 isolation kits were distributed
3.8 lakh people reached with meals and food rations
Cash relief provided for over 3,500 families of Covid-deceased

Road map ahead

“Since the inception of The/Nudge, we have been able to impact the lives of over 10 million people through both our direct and indirect work across India. Over the next five years, we want to focus on playing a catalyst role in scaling solutions that work on the ground across rural and urban livelihoods. GiveIndia was formed with an aim to serve the poor of the country. The pandemic has helped us grow as a giving community and we look forward to helping the needy and poor by enabling giving back for both individuals and organizations, and making giving bigger and better,” signs off Satija.

Reading Time: 10 mins

Making trash talk: These Indian startups are turning the spotlight on waste management

(September 20, 2021) Did you know, urban India generates 62 million tonnes of waste annually? As much as 50% of this waste is dumped in landfills untreated and toxic; a mere 20% is treated. The figures are staggering, but what is more astonishing is the lack of awareness towards waste management that continues to prevail in most urban communities. At the root of this issue is the lack of proper segregation of waste at source itself. This is compounded by careless disposal and collection. The cycle is never-ending and it is only adding to the burden on the country’s ecological resources. However, in the past few years, a new crop of entrepreneurs has emerged; they are turning the spotlight on waste management and upcycling. They use everything from discarded tires, jeans, papers, to e-waste to turn them into meaningful pieces that gives the product a new lease of life, while helping ease the burden on our burgeoning landfills. Global Indian highlights the work being done by some of these startups. Upcycler’s lab [caption id="attachment_10796" align="aligncenter" width="503"] Amishi Parasrampuria[/caption] Founded in 2014 by Amishi Parasrampuria, a University of Bath alumna, in Mumbai, Upcycler’s Lab has been changing the way people view scraps and waste. The company fashions home décor and gift items from old vinyl records, scraps and waste

f these startups.

Upcycler’s lab

[caption id="attachment_10796" align="aligncenter" width="503"] Indian entrepreneur Amishi Parasrampuria Amishi Parasrampuria[/caption]

Founded in 2014 by Amishi Parasrampuria, a University of Bath alumna, in Mumbai, Upcycler’s Lab has been changing the way people view scraps and waste. The company fashions home décor and gift items from old vinyl records, scraps and waste that are collected from individual donors and waste aggregators. A thorough cleaning process and quality check are conducted before giving them a completely stylish makeover. The company also designs collaborative board games, puzzles, storybooks and eco-alphabet flash cards that are based on environment-related topics in a bid to introduce children to the topics of waste segregations, forest and wildlife conservation and climate change among others.

So far, Upcycler’s Lab has received two grants from Powered Accelerator: the first for $10,000 in 2018 and an undisclosed amount later in 2020. The company is now looking to raise seed funding to further scale the business which also has a presence in Germany, Kuwait, and Singapore.

Paperman Foundation

[caption id="attachment_10798" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Indian entrepreneur Mathew Jose Mathew Jose[/caption]

Launched in Chennai in 2010 by Mathew Jose, an Ashoka Fellow, Paperman was initially focused on school recycling programs. As it spread its reach across schools in South India, the company also introduced a breakthrough technology platform: on-demand doorstep recycling, a mobile app that connected households with kabadiwallas (trash collectors). Paperman, which was launched with the objective to accelerate recycling in India has been conducting public awareness programs, managing processing units in partnership with various state governments, turnkey contractors for setting up recycling units and other ancillary services. Jose, who worked with the US Department of State in its International Visitor Leadership Program, also launched the Trash Funding program in 2015; this is akin to a kick-starter model to raise fund for local non-profits. The company has also been working towards becoming a Trash Economy accelerator by helping India manage its trash through a circular economy model.

Anthill creations

[caption id="attachment_10800" align="aligncenter" width="301"] Indian entrepreneur Pooja Rai Pooja Rai[/caption]

Founded in Bengaluru in 2014 by IIT-Kharagpur alumna Pooja Rai, Anthill Creation has been building playgrounds for kids using recycled material such as tires. The Ashoka Changemaker's first project was in a Bengaluru slum area, which set the ball rolling for several more projects including a library at a Bengaluru school and now over 250 such playground across 16 Indian states. The idea is to revitalize public space, but in a responsible and eco-friendly manner. Their mission is to encourage interactive learning environments in public spaces with a primary focus on sustainability. The idea for the playgrounds stemmed when Rai saw the lack of open play areas for kids and spotted children playing with broken pipes instead.

The organization was part of IIM-Bangalore’s first incubator program for non-profit organizations. Today, Rai’s work is supported by donors such as Tata Steel, Bharat Petroleum, PNB Housing, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, Wells Fargo and Cisco among others.

Namo e-waste

[caption id="attachment_10802" align="aligncenter" width="601"] Indian entrepreneur Akshay Jain Akshay Jain[/caption]

Launched in Delhi in 2014 by University of Greenwich alumnus Akshay Jain, Namo e-waste has been specializing in waste management with a focus on e-waste. The company’s philosophy is that what is a useless device for someone can turn into a useful device for another. The company processes up to 20 tonnes of e-waste on a daily basis with collection centres across 12 states and union territories in the country and has also built strategic partnerships with leading electronic companies. The company developed a technology that is based on manual dismantling, segregation and recycling of e-waste such as discarded phones and computers among other things. The material is granulated in an electrostatic separator where metals and hazardous content are segregated, with no emissions whatsoever. These are then recycled into usable items and Namo e-waste aims to provide green alternatives to electronic assessments.

Reading Time: 5 mins

India’s Unicorn Boom: How startups are changing the game

(May 11, 2022) In the last few years, India has emerged as the third largest ecosystem for startups globally with over 66,359 DPIIT-recognised startups across 642 districts. With many global leaders looking to invest in Indian market, the country is witnessing a boom in the number of unicorn companies - privately held startups with $1 billion valuation or above. Interestingly, India’s startup landscape has seen close to 100 unicorns being added since January 2019. Furthermore, the country is expected to birth more than 250 unicorns by 2025, according to the Iron Pillar report ‘India Tech Trends'. As the technology ecosystem continues to grow, Global Indian turns the spotlight on five companies, who recently made it to the country's unicorn club. MindTickle - Krishna Gopal Depura, Deepak Diwakar and Nishant Mungali In 2011, three Pune-based techies - Krishna Gopal Depura, Deepak Diwakar and Nishant Mungali started a group to take part in gamified knowledge-based treasure hunts as a hobby. The idea was not only to do something interesting, which could be at the intersection of fun and learning, but also transform the mundane life of corporates. Intrigued with the possibility of making a business out of their passion, they approached investors

orm the mundane life of corporates. Intrigued with the possibility of making a business out of their passion, they approached investors in 2011, pitched them MindTickle, and positioned the startup as a gamification platform for corporates.

[caption id="attachment_24360" align="aligncenter" width="699"] Krishna Gopal Depura, Deepak Diwakar and Nishant Mungali[/caption]

Ten years later, it was valued at $1.2 billion by SoftBank Vision fund, making it a unicorn company. Though MindTickle had its share of teething troubles, the founders never gave up on their vision. During an earlier interview, Krishna shared that though they were able to grab the attention of marquee venture capitalist (VC) fund Accel in 2012, over the next five years the business kept trickling in.

They had their eureka moment in 2015, when the founders realised that they were trying to sell their product in the wrong market. To set things right, MindTickle team used LinkedIn to gauge the need for training for sales executives. After realising that their product suited the US market, they focussed sharply on solving the pain points of business leaders who were looking for sharper and ready sales staff for their business.

Soon MindTickle started striking multi-million dollar deals with single customers. In 2017, MindTickle raised $27 million. Two years later, came $40 million in a series C round. Next to follow was a hefty cheque of $100 million from SoftBank Vision Fund in November 2020, which made MindTickle SoftBank’s first software-as-a-service (Saas) investment in India.

The startup now claims to have over 250 customers, and gets 80 percent of its revenue from the US, with the rest coming from Europe and Asia.

Follow MindTickle on Twitter and LinkedIn

PharmEasy - Dhaval Shah, Harsh Parekh, Siddharth Shah, Hardik Dedhia, and Dharmil Sheth

The pharma industry has never been an organised sector in India. However, a six-year-old company changed the game by bringing together patients, pharmacies and diagnostic centers on one platform. In 2015, two young Mumbaikars – Dharmil Seth, an alumnus of IMT Ghaziabad, and Dr Dhaval Shah, an MBBS from Rajiv Gandhi Medical College, came together to digitalise the medicine industry, so that one could order their medicines from a wide range of e-commerce medical stores online and get them delivered online without any hassles.

[caption id="attachment_24361" align="aligncenter" width="741"] Dhaval Shah, Harsh Parekh, Siddharth Shah, Hardik Dedhia, and Dharmil Sheth[/caption]

Since then, its B2B business has grown manifold. In 2019, PharmEasy merged with Ascent Health, to form API Holdings, which brought in three new co-founders on board – Siddharth Shah, Hardik Dedhia, and Harsh Parekh. In 2021, the startup joined the unicorn club and became the first e-pharmacy to do so with a valuation of $1.5 billion.

However, PharmEasy has its share of challenges, including the supply chain logistics. The biggest roadblock initially was the lack of digitised records. To overcome this, the founders ensured that every retailer they work with has digital records and a proper system by offering inventory management and accounting tools.

Today, the B2B pharma distribution business connects over a whopping 100,000 retailers to around 4,500 distributors. Furthermore, PharmEasy is looking to expand its diagnostic business which has witnessed a massive surge in the past year.

Follow PharmEasy on Twitter and LinkedIn

Moglix - Rahul Garg

Backed by Ratan Tata and Accel Partners, Moglix was launched in 2016 by an IIT-Kanpur and ISB alumnus, Rahul Garg. Headquartered in Singapore, its mission is to tide over the gap between B2B merchants and consumers, and develop an exclusive digital-trade ecosystem, tailor-made to satisfy the diverse needs of buyers and sellers.

[caption id="attachment_24362" align="aligncenter" width="655"] Rahul Garg[/caption]

One of Asia’s largest and fastest-growing supply chain services companies, Moglix joined India's unicorn club in May 2021 after raising Series E round funding of $120 million that boosted the company's valuation to surpass the $1 billion mark. However, the company did go through some tough time during the global pandemic. In the wake of the massive global supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19, Moglix looked to partnering with enterprises across industry verticals to map their supply chain requirements and provide technology-enabled solutions that are customised and scalable. They even provided PPE, medical kits, cleaning and housekeeping items, and surface agents at economical prices through its e-commerce portal moglix.com.

At present, the company claims to provide solutions and industrial products to more than 500,000 small and medium enterprises as well as to over 1000 large manufacturers across India and the UAE. It has a supply chain network of over 16,000 suppliers, and operates across 40 warehouses along with an in-house logistics infrastructure.

Follow Moglix on Twitter and LinkedIn

CoinDCX - Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal

Even though the world of crypto is still volatile with no clarity on the legality of the digital asset, two college friends- Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal – pooled in all their life savings to start cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX in 2018. Unfortunately, it was the same year when Reserve Bank of India issued a banking ban on crypto transactions. Several crypto startups had to shut shop or continue operations while navigating numerous roadblocks. CoinDCX, too, decided to fight the uphill battle and was among the few players that contested the regulator’s ban in court.

[caption id="attachment_24363" align="aligncenter" width="707"] Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal[/caption]

In March 2020, the Supreme Court lifted the ban on cryptocurrency exchanges and one-and-a-half years later, CoinDCX became the first crypto startup to enter the unicorn club with a $90 million funding led by B Capital. During an interview, Sumit shared that the CoinDCX team has seen the total spectrum of fundraising in the space during their journey. What helped them was keeping their heads down and focusing on building their company.

With over 3.5 million users, CoinDCX is now aiming to make crypto more accessible in India and accelerate its efforts of bringing 50 million Indians into the crypto fold.

Follow CoinDCX on Twitter and LinkedIn

GlobalBees - Deepak Khetan, Nitin Agarwal, and Supam Maheshwari

Based on the Thrasio model, e-commerce startup GlobalBees was founded in May 2021 by FirstCry founder Supam Maheshwari and Edelweiss’ former President Nitin Agarwal. The idea was to acquire digital-first brands across categories such as beauty, nutrition, food, fitness, personal care, lifestyle, home, sports and lifestyle, which have a revenue rate of $1 million to $20 million, and help them scale up and grow. In just seven months, GlobalBees made it to the unicorn list in December 2021, by raising $150 million in a Series A financing round led by FirstCry.

[caption id="attachment_24364" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Deepak Khetan, Nitin Agarwal, and Supam Maheshwari[/caption]

In the last few years, many ecommerce brands have cropped up in India, owing to the evolution of the ecosystem with better logistics, deeper internet penetration, and increased consumer interest and trust. However, what make GlobalBees different is their ambition to build the product and focus on innovation. The company acquires and partners with sellers on Amazon and equips them with capabilities across marketing and growth, technology, distribution, sourcing, branding, warehousing, logistics, R&D, product development, and operations — all things essential to rapidly scale the brands in the digital space.

GlobalBees has acquired 12 brands across categories, including The Better Home, Prolixr, Absorbia, Yellow Chimes, HealthyHey, and others. Presently, the company’s strategy is to work with these and build them up.

Follow GlobalBees on Twitter and LinkedIn

Reading Time: 7 mins

Deepinder Goyal: The resilient entrepreneur ever hungry for bigger challenges

(July 16, 2021; 6:55 pm) What began as an intranet website has now turned into one of the biggest food delivery companies in the country. Zomato, a brand that became a billion-dollar empire in just a decade, has now hit another jackpot with its ₹9,375 crore Initial Public Offering (IPO). Such has been the craze that its IPO subscribed nearly five times on the second day of its issue. A feat not many companies have attained. And, the lion’s share of credit goes to its founder Deepinder Goyal. At the Zomato office pic.twitter.com/0hzeZD9M9g — Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) July 14, 2021 Ever since the record-breaking debut at IPO, Goyal has been at the receiving end of immense support and cheer from other entrepreneurs. From co-founder Pankaj Chaddah and Info Edge’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the laurels keep pouring in. Pankaj Chaddha, the co-founder of Zomato, tweeted, “Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem. Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO” Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team!

/strong>, the laurels keep pouring in.

Pankaj Chaddha, the co-founder of Zomato, tweeted, “Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem. Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO”

Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years, and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem.

Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO

— Pankaj Chaddah (@pankajchaddah) July 14, 2021

How it started. How it’s going @zomato @deepigoyal pic.twitter.com/zcNou498UN

— Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) July 14, 2021

The humble beginnings

It was while ordering a pizza from his room at IIT-Delhi that an idea of starting a food delivery company struck Goyal. However, it fizzled out soon, and Goyal ventured into the corporate world with Bain & Company. It was here that the idea regerminated when he saw a sea of crowd struggling to place the order at the canteen during mealtimes. With the help from his colleague Pankaj Chaddah, who was also Goyal's junior at IIT-Delhi, the two came up with a creative solution for saving time spent while ordering food. That was the beginning of Foodiebay.com. Scanning the office canteen's menu and those from neighboring restaurants made Foodiebay.com an instant hit at Bain.

With the revenue trickling in, Goyal and Chaddah decided to turn their side hustle into a proper business. They quit Bain in 2009 and decided to start their own company.

The positive response encouraged Foodiebay.com to extend its wings to other metropolitan like Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, and Bengaluru, and in one year, they listed over 8000 restaurants.

The game-changing e-mail

Foodiebay.com was doing well for a start-up, but little did Goyal know that an e-mail from a fan would change their lives forever. It was Sanjeev Bikhchandani, the founder of naukri.com and Info Edge, who reached out to Goyal telling him that he would like to invest in Foodiebay.com. The two signed the deal within few days of the email. Info Edge invested $1 million in 2010 in Foodiebay.com.

How Foodiebay became Zomato

With a million-dollar invested in Foodiebay.com, Goyal decided to change the name to Zomato. The entrepreneur soon realized that there was 'ebay in his brand, and in his words, "one should not build a business on a name which has 5% chance of getting screwed in the future."

Soon Zomato was introduced to the world with a massive marketing and rebranding exercise.

"We decided to keep the idea of food at the center but choose a name that is timeless and encompassing. We decided on the name Zomato. Zomato’s got a zing to it and is originally a play on the word Tomato. Zomato is not restricted to food either," Deepinder Goyal wrote in his blog in 2010.

The Global Indian brand

In two years of the start-up, Zomato went international by launching its service in Dubai and Singapore. The same year, Zomato went social with its new tools asking its 2.5 million active monthly users to review restaurants and share their love for food.

In 2013, Sanjeev Bikhchandani pitched Zomato to venture capital giants Sequoia, and in no time, they jointly invested $37 million in the food delivery company, which then had 600 employees and its existence in 11 countries.

With an appetite for global expansion, Zomato acquired New Zealand's MenuMania, Czech Republic's Lunchtime, Poland's Gastronauci, and America's UrbanSpoon. With its US launch, the food aggregator brand entered the coveted unicorn club with a $50 million fundraiser from Vy Capital and Info Edge.

Trouble in paradise

The food delivery giant started facing trouble in its paradise in 2015 when it had to lay off 300 employees. It even made an exit from 14 countries it was in and reduced its cash burn from $9 million to $1.6 million.

Zomato vs Swiggy

It was towards the end of 2018 that Zomato started to feel the heat from its competitor Swiggy, that was making a big wave in online delivery food. But Goyal wasn't ready to bow down to competition yet and introduced strict timelines for food delivery in 2015. And within one year, Zomato hit 1 million orders.

In 2018, Zomato felt a huge blow when Pankaj Chaddah, the co-founder, quit the company without any explanation. This was also the beginning of restaurants' cold relationship with Zomato. So much so that a Log Out campaign was launched by the restaurants alleging high commissions. However, Zomato had a different story to tell and called the restaurants its partners.

It was in January 2020 that Zomato bite into its competition when it bought Uber Eats in a $350 acquisition.

And now Zomato has come knocking on the people’s doors for delivering its shares. How well would Zomato do as a public company? The whole of India’s startup ecosystem would be watching.

Editor's Take

Deepinder Goyal revolutionized the food industry with Zomato. He literally brought every restaurant to our doorstep with just a swipe on the phone.: A feat that wasn't achieved in the food business until 2008. Zomato’s rise from a bootstrapped venture to a company that is raising a record amount through its IPO augurs well for the Indian startup ecosystem. For the first time, a new-age Indian internet venture - typically not exposed to public scrutiny – will be dissected and analyzed. This will also be a test of whether India’s equity markets are ready to accept fast-growing, but loss-making companies. The Zomato IPO will be a testbed for Indian startups.

Reading Time: 6 mins