Amazon announces $250 million venture funding for Indian startups

According to Indian media reports, Amazon recently announced a $250 million venture capital fund ( Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund) to invest in Indian startups and entrepreneurs, focusing on the digitization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs) in key overseas markets .

Agriculture and health care are two other areas that Amazon 's new venture fund is focusing on , though Amazon also said it could consider tech startups in other fields if their work intersects with small and medium-sized businesses.

Through the new venture fund, Amazon said it wants to invest in startups that are focused on helping small businesses get online, sell online, automate and digitize operations, and expand to customers around the world. But the company did not disclose the lifespan of the fund (how long it plans to take to spend the $250 million).

Amazon said it had led a $10 million investment in M1xchange, a three-year-old startup that operates a discounted invoice marketplace for small and medium-sized businesses .

In the first phase of Smbhav Investment launched last year , Amazon announced that it would invest $1 billion to help 10 million small and medium-sized enterprises to digitize. Amazon said earlier this month that since January 2020, the company has created 300,000 jobs in India and enabled the export of Indian-made goods worth $3 billion.

The company said more than 50,000 offline retailers and neighborhood stores are using Amazon Marketplace, and about 250,000 new sellers have also joined the platform. Amazon said its goal is to establish 1 million offline retailers and neighborhood stores through Amazon 's local stores by 2025 .

The US e-commerce group has invested more than $6.5 billion (about 67.5 billion yuan) in its Indian business so far, but Amazon has been facing heavy pressure from Indian government agencies and some small and medium-sized enterprise sellers .

Earlier , Indian reports said that the US e-commerce group gave preferential treatment to a small group of sellers in India, openly misrepresented its relationship with these sellers, and used these relationships to circumvent foreign investment regulations in India . The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) even "demanded" that the Indian government take serious action against Amazon.

It has to be said that as an important site for Amazon, Amazon still has a long way to go in India!

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