KOCHI: E-commerce is one of the most thriving industries in India. Currently ruled by giants like Amazon and Flipkart, Reliance Industries is all set to make it big on the e-commerce platform. As a first step, they have acquired a majority stake in a startup named Fynd, which was co-founded by a Malayali Sreeraman M G, a native of Thiruvananthapuram.
Sreeraman founded Fynd in 2012 along with Harsh Shah and Farooq Adam while pursuing his masters in Interaction Design from IIT Mumbai.
Reliance, aiming to flourish in the e-commerce industry, has invested Rs 295 crore in Fynd, making it the highest stakeholder in the company. It can invest Rs 100 crore more, elevating its share per cent to 87.6 per cent. The rest will remain with the founders. Fynd’s website features around 600 brands, including Nike, Being Human, Raymond, and Global Desi. Nearly 9,000 stores are connected through Fynd’s platform.
But, what makes Fynd different from other e-commerce companies? “Whether it is dress or footwear, other companies buy these products and keep at their warehouses. When someone orders a product, they dispatch it directly from their warehouse. But we don’t have a warehouse. Whenever a customer orders through our website/app, the products are delivered directly from the store or the brand’s warehouse. If someone in Kochi orders a product, it will be delivered to him from the nearest store. This makes the delivery quick and cuts the delivery charge.”
According to Sreeraman, he and his partners had a few business ideas before zeroing on the retail industry. “Retail was the most interesting one and had immense potential. So, we started a company called Shopsense and Shopsense Match was our product. It was an interactive touchscreen installed at various stores wherein a customer can try out clothes on a model to check whether they go well with each other before trying them out. Our major clients included Being Human, Diesel, US Polo Assn, Flying Machine, Nautica and Nike. But, it didn’t work out as expected as the touchscreens were expensive and the stores needed to place them on a pivotal position so that customers could try it out. Owing to the retail industry’s potential, we wanted to remain in that. That’s how we found Fynd, shifting from B2B to B2C,” he adds.
Other products from their company are Fynd Store, OpenAPI and Uniket. “We will be working together to enhance our products,” he adds.
Last year, Google had invested Rs 50 crore in Fynd as a move to gather more users from India. Sreeraman asserts that they are very happy with the investment made by Reliance. “They are our existing client. Reliance already has an offline presence across the country. The e-commerce sector in our country has a lot of potential and is still open,” he says.