Infosys co-founder Narayan Murthy is partnering with Amazon to launch an ecommerce project in India, reports Reuters .
Considering that Narayan Murthy is an experienced campaigner in launching companies and making them not just big, but huge; and Amazon having deep pockets and rock solid ambitions to create something big, this development is considered a vital turning point for the Indian eCommerce industry.
Narayan Murthy is soon stepping down as Executive Chairman of Infosys, and via this new venture, he will soon make his presence felt across the industry. This would be his first major venture in the ecommerce space, and if everything goes as per the plans, it can be a big blow to Indian eCommerce giants such as Flipkart and Snapdeal who are struggling to increase their market share in this sector.
As per the reports, Narayan Murthy will “route his investments” via Catamaran Investments which is his own private investment firm based in Bangalore and London.
“Catamaran is partnering with Amazon Asia to offer services that help offline sellers and SMBs in India to get online and to take advantage of the fast-growing online customer base in the country”, said Arjun Ramegowda Narayanswamy who heads Catamaran Ventures. He also clarified that as of now Narayan Murthy doesn’t have any board role at any existing investment venture. But he didn’t reveal how much and how far will he be involved in this new venture.
Based on the statement, it seems that Murthy is planning a market place based model to capture the ever expanding Indian eCommerce market, using Amazon’s expertise and experience along with their market specialization.
FDI is currently not allowed in Indian eCommerce. In order to ensure that their new venture doesn’t fall under the restrictions imposed by the Govt. related to FDI, both Catamaran and Amazon have consulted top legal advisors to come up with a feasible partnership plan.
As per the insider sources, Catamaran will hold 51% stake in the new joint venture; and will have an Indian name as well.
Late last year, we had reported that Azim Premji, founder of IT behemoth Wipro is also trying to enter eCommerce space via investment in Myntra; and eventually he invested $50 million in the venture. Was Narayan Murthy inspired by this investment of Premji?
We will keep you updated as new development takes place related to this big news.
Founder of wipro is Azim Premji… So plz correct that.