Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00025039
INDIA
WHAT IS GOINBG TO DRIVE INDIA'S FUTURE?
Bloomberg Technology: Amazon's Unicorn Hunt ... July 18th 2023
WHAT IS GOINBG TO DRIVE INDIA'S FUTURE?
Bloomberg Technology: Amazon's Unicorn Hunt ... July 18th 2023
Original article:
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Written by Sankalp Phartiyal ... Bloomberg Technology
July 18th 2023, 7:09 AM
Hi everyone, it’s Sankalp in New Delhi. Amazon is launching a Shark Tank-like reality show in India, which could help shape the company’s image in its top international market. But first...
Unicorn hunt
“Stop yourself every now and then, to give yourself a pat on your back if you want, but just keep going.” Advice you’d expect from a Dale Carnegie self-help book, not a Bollywood star speaking about entrepreneurship. But that’s exactly what it was: Alia Bhatt, one of India’s top actresses, drawing on her experience of starting a kids’ clothing line. She spoke on July 12 at a posh New Delhi hotel, launching a startup reality show for Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime video-streaming service that costs 1,499 rupees ($18) a year.
The seven-episode Mission Start Ab (ab is Hindi for now) will bring together three yet-to-be-named investors to hunt for India’s next unicorn. The timing of the new show couldn’t be more fortuitous. India’s startup economy is in the throes of a funding winter and its poster child, Byju’s, is desperately trying to restore investor confidence after missing loan payments and losing board members.
Mission Start Ab is yet another attempt by Amazon to reshape the narrative around its Indian business, which I’ve seen growing over the years even as it’s faced challenges. Mom-and pop store owners have often labeled it predatory, and the government has previously been just as unkind. Three years ago, as founder Jeff Bezos visited, India’s trade minister said Amazon wasn’t doing the country a “great favor” by investing. That high-decibel anti-Amazon rhetoric has softened even though antitrust challenges remain. Nevertheless, the tech giant has ploughed on, bringing more small businesses, artisans and women entrepreneurs onto its online storefront.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with CEO Andy Jassy during the Indian premier’s US tour last month ushered in the prospect of greater cooperation between the government and Amazon. In the latest sign of the thaw, the Modi administration agency that's responsible for shaping national tech policy is a prominent adviser of the new show, similar to the hit series Shark Tank.
Mission Start Ab once again underscores the lure of India, the world’s most populous nation, for global internet companies scouting hungrily for growth beyond their home markets. And it comes at a time when India, according to tech minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, is brimming with “extreme confidence and extreme desire to try out entrepreneurship.” Talk about killing two birds with one stone. — Sankalp Phartiyal
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