Amazon to invest $250 million fund in Indian startups and small enterprises By CIOReviewIndia Team

Amazon to invest $250 million fund in Indian startups and small enterprises

CIOReviewIndia Team | Thursday, 15 April 2021, 11:49 IST

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Amazon to invest $250 million fund in Indian startups and small enterprisesE-commerce major, Amazon India, announced a $250 million ‘Smbhav venture fund’ to invest in startups and entrepreneurs, focussing on technology innovations in the domain of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The fund will focus on three big areas - digitisation of small businesses in the country, agri-tech innovations to empower farmer productivity and health tech to offer universal and quality healthcare for Indian citizens, stated Amit Agarwal, global senior vice president and country head of Amazon India.

Along with this, Amazon India also decided to onboard 1 million offline retailers and neighbourhood stores by 2025 through its Local Shops on Amazon program.

Amazon had launched the ‘Local Shops on Amazon’ program to assist, bring offline retailers and neighbourhood stores online and supplement footfalls at their stores with a digital presence on Amazon.in.

The e-commerce company also announced the launch of ‘Spotlight North East’ initiative which looks to provide technology tools and customers to local women and tribal communities in India’s north-east region. The company features to benefit 50,000 weavers, artisans from tribal communities, including local small businesses and offline neighbourhood stores, by 2025.

The announcements were made as a part of Amazon India’s four-day long flagship event Amazon Smbhav Summit, for small and medium enterprises.

“Small and medium sized businesses are often the engine and the lifeblood of economies, and I think it's true in India as well. We are very passionate about trying to enable acceleration of small medium sized businesses in fueling innovation and the economy in India. Through the Smbhav Venture Fund, we are going to assist inspire more SMEs, to be able to build brand new businesses," stated Andrew Jassy, who is expected to take over the position of chief executive officer, at Amazon Inc. this year.

During the last ‘Smbhav’ summit, founder of Amazon Inc. Jeff Bezos had visited India and said that Amazon will export $10 billion ‘Make in India’ goods by 2025. Amazon had also pledged to digitise close to 10 million small and medium enterprises (SMES) and create 1 million jobs by 2025.

“We are committed to be a catalyst and a partner in unlocking the possibilities for a Digital India and realize the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat as put forth by the Honrable Prime Minister. The launch of Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund aims to attract the best ideas and empower entrepreneurs in the country to partner in this vision. Additionally, our initiatives to on-board 1 million offline shops on Amazon.in and digitally empower the north-east region will accelerate the progress towards a digital and self-reliant India," stated Agarwal.

Amazon India stated that it has already created close to 300,000 jobs since January, last year, and has employed more than 1 million individuals to its workforce.

The company stated that it has close to 70,000 sellers on its platform, exporting Indian goods to global geographies, enabling $3 billion in global sales from the country.

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