In India, you can’t have 10 big horizontal e-com players; consolidation is imminent: Alok Mittal of Canaan Partners

Canaan Partners is an early-stage VC fund which started investing in India back in 2006. Till date, it has 13 portfolio companies across sectors like e-commerce, enterprise technology, analytics and more. Techcircle.in caught up with Canaan’s managing director Alok Mittal at the TiE India Internet...

Sonam Gulati

One97 founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma talks about VAS trends and category expansion

Set up as a mobile VAS delivery platform in 2000, One97 has introduced a number of verticals, focussing on m-commerce and mobile marketing. One97 is known for its agility and ability to move with the market. Its subsidiary Paytm became the market leader in a short span of time. Talking about the lat...

Sonam Gulati

Mahindra Comviva CTO Arun Tanksali talks about VAS trends, VAS vs apps and more

Tech Mahindra acquired 51 per cent stake in Bharti Group’s mobile VAS firm Comviva last year for Rs 260 crore ($48 million) and the firm was rechristened as Mahindra Comviva. The VAS firm’s suite of services includes solutions spanning mobile money and payments, mobile data, integrated messaging...

Anand Rai

Indian OTA market is still pretty nascent: Cleartrip’s Stuart Crighton

Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt Ltd, which runs the online travel booking site Cleartrip.com, is one of the top Indian OTAs and has attracted over $70 million in funding from various investors including Concur Technologies, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sherpalo Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvets...

Bruhadeeswaran R

In India, innovation happening across industries, not just in tech & life sciences: Ajay Hattangdi of SVB Finance

A venture debt involves debt financing, specifically structured to support startups and early-stage businesses that require flexibility in loan amounts, collaterals and repayment structures, for which traditional bank loans are rarely available. US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which has complete...

Vrishank Chandavarkar

We want to replicate Quidsi’s business model in India: Supam Maheshwari, founder & CEO of Firstcry

Baby care products is one e-com category in India where the vertical players have managed to stand on their own and Firstcry.com seems to be breaking out of the pack. Founded by Supam Maheshwari in 2010, Brainbees Solutions, which runs Firstcry.com besides family wellness focused site Goodlife.com, ...

Sonam Gulati

Peyush Bansal of multi-vertical e-tailer Valyoo Technologies on raising Series B, piloting offline stores and more

Delhi-based Valyoo Technologies, which runs a string of vertical e-shops (Jewelskart.com, Watchkart.com, Bagskart.com and Lenskart.com) raised $10 million in series B from Unilazer and IDG Ventures few weeks ago, in a market where VC firms are being selective in making fresh investments in e-...

Vrishank Chandavarkar

Lack of merchant focus tripped up Indian group buying sites: Groupon India CEO Ankur Warikoo

Founded by Andrew Mason in 2008, Groupon created a niche as a group buying site. Although copycats jumped in, the early mover was one among the slew of high interest internet IPOs in the US two years ago. Then it all came crashing down. Today, the company is valued some one-fourth of its original ma...

Anand Rai

ShopClues doing 1.7 lakh transactions/month; eyes profits in Q1, 2014: CEO Sandeep Aggarwal

Gurgaon-based Clues Network Pvt Ltd, the startup that runs the horizontal e-commerce marketplace ShopClues.com, had recently raised Series B funding of $10 million (Rs 54.1 crore) from Helion Venture Partners, Nexus Partners and Netprice.com, a Japanese business group based in Tokyo. Helion led the...

Sonam Gulati

Excl: Myntra.com co-founder and CEO Mukesh Bansal says IPO possible in 2-3 years

Bangalore-based Myntra Designs Pvt Ltd, which runs the lifestyle e-commerce site Myntra.com, was founded in 2007 as a customised gift printing company. It transitioned to a lifestyle e-commerce company about two years back. So far it has received $40 million from investors, with the last round worth...