<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/50267098.cms" /> Business-to-Business is fast becoming the next ‘must-invest’ sector in India and 2015 has been the year. With Venture Capitalists pouring in millions of money into <keyword id="6399166" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="B2B">B2B</keyword> ecommerce start-ups this space saw exceptional growth in just one year. It also saw some spectacular decisions being taken with the plan to set up the country’s first B2B international ecommerce platform for manufacturers and exporters to sell any product that is made or valued in India, to overseas vendors. “2015 is the year when B2B became a sector on its own,” said Swati Gupta, founder of <keyword id="2741940" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="industrybuying-com">industrybuying.com</keyword> that is growing at 25% month-on-month since December 2014. Another portal in the space <keyword id="2735270" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Tolexo">Tolexo</keyword>.com, India’s first and largest online bazaar for Industrial products, has hit a major milestone with over 1, 00,000 businesses buying from its online platform and records more than 40% growth in the customer base month-on-month, within 10 months of its launch. Further, the brand is expected to serve 1 million businesses by 2020. “The adoption rate has been phenomenal,” said <keyword id="2402415" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Brijesh-Agrawal">Brijesh Agrawal</keyword>, founder of Tolexo. He was leading IndiaMart for 19 years. These portals have also attracted huge <keyword id="6357455" type="EVENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="Funding">funding</keyword>. Industrybuying raised USD 9 million in Series B funding in September 2015. The latest to join the bandwagon is rivigo, which offers on-demand B2B logistics services to companies in the e-commerce, FMCG, auto, pharma and the cold chain industries and has secured a funding of USD 30 million. 

	The numbers have proved well why this sector is going to be the ‘next big thing’ in the start-ups revolution. But what changed in 2015 that made it so huge an industry?
 

	Drivers
 

	“What existed earlier was the classified platform where typically businesses would find out with whom they want to do businesses with. But with these portals, businesses can sell and buy instantly, without having to negotiate as the price and availability of the product are there on the site. Hence the overall buying decision becomes a lot easier and quicker for them to make. These portals not only allow you to find the right product and the right supplier, it also ensures the product is picked up from the supplier and delivered to the doorstep,” said Brijesh.
 

	He further said another added advantage was that the products can be delivered in small cities too.
 

	Tolexo has managed to penetrate into the deepest parts of the nation, with customers from remote locations on its list, from among more than 900 cities, with over 65% of this traction coming from Tier 2, 3 &amp; 4 cities. 
 

	Challenges
 The sector mainly faces four main challenges, <keyword id="6383566" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Taxation">taxation</keyword> systems in different states, supply chain network, adaptability to the new online platform and awareness. 

	1. Taxation
 

	Different states have different taxation for different products. Dealing with that is a bit of a problem as the supplier can come from any city for that matter.
 

	2. Adaptability
 

	“B2B has never been exposed to ecommerce before, both from the seller side and the buyer side. So, the nuances that come along a typical B2B ecommerce business are something that we are experiencing for the first time,” said Brijesh.
 

	3. Supply chain network
 

	The third challenge is with the logistics infrastructure itself. The major traction that comes from Tier 2,3 and 4 cities. The existing supply chain network is not predictable in these areas.
 

	“So delivering within a specified timeframe is big challenge,” said Swati.
 

	4. Awareness
 

	Also, lack of awareness is something that cause lack of trust between the supplier and the customer.
 

	Some predictions for 2016
 A clear supply chain network would be built for <keyword id="3179231" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="B2B-ecommerce-portals">B2B ecommerce portals</keyword>, predicts Brijesh while adding that they are planning to build a credit based payment mechanism for business to buy online in 2016. 

	Swati predicts her platform will witness a growth of 3x in the next six months.

	 
	 
	(Image credits: Indiatimes)

A clear supply chain network will be built for B2B ecommerce portals in 2016: Brijesh Agrawal, founder of Tolexo predicts

<ul><li><keyword id="381854" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="indiamart" source="Orion">IndiaMart</keyword>’s share price is now above the ₹8,000-mark, compared to ₹1,800 in March 2020.</li><li>The B2B e-commerce company now sits on a market cap of ₹27,483.8 crore ($3.7 billion).</li><li>IndiaMart competes with Tencent-backed Udaan and publicly listed company Just Dial, which was recently acquired by Reliance Industries.</li></ul>If you invested ₹25,000 in <keyword id="5802502" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="indiamart-intermesh" source="Orion">IndiaMart InterMesh</keyword> Limited last year in March, your shares would now be worth over ₹1,21,000. It wasn’t a long time ago that IndiaMart’s shares were valued at ₹1,846 (March 27, 2020), right after India stepped into the pandemic-induced lockdown. Along with these restrictions came massive supply chain disruption that left Indian industry — from manufacturing to healthcare — in a void. IndiaMart has been gaining from it since then. A business model that allows buyers and sellers to interact and cash in on their product needs — without physical contact — has allowed IndiaMart to garner the interest of more customers and get confidence of retail investors amidst the pandemic. IndiaMart currently competes with Tencent-backed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/indian-b2b-e-commerce-startup-udaan-raises-280-million-valuation-jumps-to-over-3-billion/articleshow/80132753.cms">Udaan</a> (valued at $3 billion) and publicly listed company Just Dial (market cap of $845 million), which was recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/mukesh-ambanis-reliance-retail-to-buy-majority-stake-in-justdial-vss-mani-to-continue-as-md-and-ceo/articleshow/84477000.cms">acquired </a>by Reliance Industries. IndiaMart’s share prices were above ₹8,900 as of September 8, 2021. The company’s share prices have increased 24% in the last month, from ₹7,236 on August 9. It now sits on a market capitalisation of ₹27,483.8 crore ($3.7 billion). <div type="image" title="Indiamart share price has gone up nearly five times in last 18 months and the record profit is only a part of what’s driving it" msid="86058098" hostid="261"></div> Jyoti Roy, equities strategist at Angel Broking, told Business Insider India that COVID-19 has shifted B2B commerce trends, from offline to online, and IndiaMart is strategically positioned to cater to such trends. Structural changes have happened in terms of supply and demand, and how these needs are met, he added. As COVID-19 has forced micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) into the digital arena, all companies that enable such transformation have benefited from it. In general, any newage business — like Affle India or Route Mobile — that lays more stress on digital or digitisation have benefited in the last one year, Roy added. Deven R Choksey, managing director of KR Choksey Investment Managers, noted, “everyone wants to make investments in these kinds of businesses when they are not losing money. In a business-to-customer (B2C) model ecommerce platform loses money.” <div type="image" title="Indiamart share price has gone up nearly five times in last 18 months and the record profit is only a part of what’s driving it" msid="86058074" hostid="261"></div> Founded in 1996, by Dinesh Agarwal and Brijesh Agrawal, IndiaMart currently enables business and discovery for MSMEs. It helps these small businesses with buyer and seller negotiations as well as quotation and invoicing of products. The company has been planning to expand further into the commerce side of the business, with payments, logistics/tracking and transactional financing. <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none; table-layout: fixed; width: 468pt;" class="redcator-table-advance"><colgroup></colgroup><col /><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Key points to note about IndiaMart’s performance in April to June quarter of FY22 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">IndiaMart reported a revenue of ₹210 crore, with a new profit of ₹91 crore. </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">The company had 66 lakh suppliers on its platform. Its traffic grew to 248 million (24.8 crore). </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">It witnessed organic growth and did not incur any advertising spends. </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">The company had 146,000 paid suppliers. </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Average revenue per user (ARPU) increased to ₹49,700. </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">It reported a revenue of ₹750 crore in FY2021. </td></tr></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody></table>Source: IndiaMart’s financial report, Motilal Oswal “Apart from collections and revenue growth, IndiaMART has shown higher resilience on the margin front. While we concur that margins at current levels are unsustainable, it would see positive benefits from cost optimisation and operating leverage in the long term,” Motilal Oswal said in a <a href="https://www.motilaloswal.com/site/rreports/637628892983928419.pdf">report </a>published in July 2021. More small businesses are going digital, placing orders and finding new customers online. The company has over 70% market share in the underlying industry, the report noted. What’s better, the buyers and sellers on IndiaMart are less sensitive to pricing by the platform, according to Motilal Oswal, allowing the company to steadily increase its average revenue per user. ALSO WATCH: IndiaMart’s founder Dinesh Agarwal explaining the recent trends in e-commerce <div type="Video" msid="86061546" hostid="261" title="IndiaMart’s founder Dinesh Agarwal explaining the recent trends in e-commerce" dataSource="BUSINESSINSIDER" thumbUrl="https://denmark.timesinternet.in/cmslite/api/app/images.jpg?msid=86061546"></div> Motilal Oswal, in the report published before Reliance’s acquisition of Justdial, added, “IndiaMART would continue to work on gaining buyer and supplier traction to emerge as the market leader in this space.” Meanwhile, Roy of Angel Broking said that B2B e-commerce is still at an nascent stage but there is a lot of growth potential for each company over the next three-five years. Therefore, it’s too early to comment on competition at the moment. He also noted that the new age digital businesses have the potential to be valued much higher than the traditional information technology (IT) business that enjoys supremacy today. SEE ALSO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/zomato-policybazaar-investor-info-edge-invested-in-nearly-2-startups-every-month-in-2021/articleshow/86028438.cms">Zomato, PolicyBazaar investor Info Edge invested in nearly 2 startups every month in 2021</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/byjus-bags-another-150-million-to-fund-its-acquisition-spree/articleshow/86027937.cms">Byju’s bags another $150 million to fund its acquisition spree</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/zoho-corp-invests-5-million-in-medical-devices-startup-voxelgrids/articleshow/86000656.cms">Zoho Corp invests $5 million in medical devices startup Voxelgrids</a>

Indiamart share price has gone up nearly five times in last 18 months and the record profit is only a part of what’s driving it

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/47899629.cms" /> Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> launched yet one of his other pet projects—Digital India with much fanfare. He emphasized on connecting India through technology and invited investments for his project. And while teleco and infrastructure majors <keyword id="6354287" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bharti-Airtel">Bharti Airtel</keyword> and <keyword id="6487" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Reliance-Industries-Ltd">Reliance Industries Ltd</keyword> have pledged $1.6 billion and $39.3 billion respectively in the initiative, here’s what everyone had to say about the project: 
 
Prakash Sangam, CEO, <keyword id="6359128" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Redbus">RedBus</keyword> 
 
We at redBus would like to commend and wholeheartedly welcome PM Narendra Modi's Digital India initiative. We believe that such initiatives in the new digital era will empower India and its citizens, open up new opportunities and accelerate economic growth. 
 
Pramod Saxena, founder and CMD, <keyword id="389412" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Oxigen">Oxigen</keyword> Services 
 
Digitising India is the only sure shot way to reach the benefit of growth to india's masses and that then will create the multiplier to ensure the target 8 to 10% sustained GDP growth. The call for digital India is certainly the most appropriate call for transforming India into a vibrant and strong global economy. 
 
Rohit Raghav, co-founder, Phone Warrior 
 
Digitalization must be accompanied by democratization. Indians need, and deserve, a visionary approach to public services like Digital India initiative. However, one of the fundamental lacunae in British-era bureaucracy systems in our country is lack of feedback systems for government policies and execution. Service that will go completely digital will become faceless to a large extent and run the risk of big gaps in delivery quality. Ubiquitous mobile phones could be ideal partner for government and people in facilitating very fast, simple, and accurate real-time feedback. True democratization means true empowerment and it can begin now. 
 
Deepak Ravindran, founder and CEO, Lookup 
 
Digital India subsumes a mix of services and plans that are just right for reinvigorating the state of governance in the country. The programme will make it easy for the citizens to avail the government services online, in an easy way. With this technology advancement, India will transform into a digitally empowered knowledge economy. 
 
As far as private and public sector synergy is concerned, the engagement of the private sector in national development programs has the potential to serve development ends across any and all sectors. It will support the government by providing suitable infrastructure and technology-led facilities to consumers. Besides this, there will be a good inflow of innovative ideas and modern technologies from the private sector that will give a boost to the Digital India Programme. 
 
Brijesh Agrawal, Founder and CEO, Tolexo.com an IndiaMART 
 
Digital India is an initiative that holds the potential of transforming India into a developed nation in the next two decades. Not to forget that this will give a much needed boost to the booming e-commerce eco-system in India. 
 
With the government focusing on broadband and smartphone penetration across the country, it’s a great opportunity for the e-commerce players to accelerate their growth by tapping a new set of target audience. As a player in online B2B e-commerce space, we are already doing more than two-thirds of our orders from tier 2,3 &amp;4 cities and this initiative will further help us reach out to businesses in areas that offer huge potential but remain untapped due to poor connectivity and infrastructure issues. We look forward to metamorphosis of our nation into a digitally-empowered economy. 
 
Puneet Johar, CEO, The New Ventures 
 <keyword id="2926829" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Digital-India-Week">Digital India week</keyword> is a welcome move with the view to transform the country into a digitally-empowered knowledge economy. The idea is to create awareness and sensitize people from all strata about the ongoing activities under the Digital India platform. It reaches beyond the early adopters to tell people about the utility if digital as a consumer and in their profession. 
 
Image Credit: Indiatimes.com

#DigitalIndiaWeek: Know what everyone said about PM Modi’s pet
project

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/50592973.cms" style="width: 800px; height: 600px;" /> 
Few more hours to the launch of the most anticipated initiative of the booming start-up industry in India, “Startup India, Standup India”. While rumours are ripe that a new roadmap would be launched at the event, start-ups are expecting a lot more than a roadmap. 
 
“It should create a startup environment in the country with the proper structures in place,” said Anisha Singh, cofounder of mydala. 
 <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> has a lot to live up to tomorrow. Starting from legal compliances to changes in academic curriculum to encourage <keyword id="107737" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Entrepreneurship">entrepreneurship</keyword>, start-ups have come up with the most innovative measures which could lead to tremendous growth of the industry. 
 
India is witnessing the rise of varied genres of start-ups, from food start-ups to tech start-ups to ecommerce to health start-ups. Here’s a look at the expectations of each sector before the D-day. 
 
Tech start-ups 
 
Here’s what tech start-up Cube 26’s expectations from the initiative. 
 
1. Lower rate of interest on loans for <keyword id="6362513" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Startups">Startups</keyword> - In order to help startups sustain till the time startups are able to raise investments, the government should set a slightly lower rate of interest to promote and sustain more entrepreneurs. 
 
2. Tax exemptions for entrepreneurs - Government should provide 1-3 years of tax and compliance holiday for startups under the ‘Start Up India’ initiative 
 
3. Involvement of startups in Government projects - Usually the size and turnaround time of government projects is higher as compared to private companies. Also, being in a dynamic environment, it’s difficult for startups to sustain themselves after investing in government projects till the time payment turnaround happens. So, in order to provide them exposure to big projects, government should come out with flexible opportunities for startups to allow them to help with their technology or consultancy expertise in certain use cases. 
 
4. Make in India in hardware - The hardware ecosystem in India is quite weak at the moment owing to higher prices of manufacturing and lack of skills. The government should work in tandem with manufacturers as well as institutes to develop skills on both the fronts. 
 
Education startups 
 
Vedantu, an online tutoring portal expects. 
 “Ed-Tech sector holds huge promise to personalize and democratize education. It would be very encouraging for entrepreneurs in the Ed-Tech and the larger education space to get additional support given that it’s a critical sector for our long-term economic growth, social progress and if India has to reap the demographic dividend. Special <keyword id="6357455" type="EVENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="Funding">funding</keyword> provisions within the start-up fund pool created by the government and incentives for entrepreneurs keen to enter this sector would go a long way,” said Vamsi Krishna, CEO &amp; Co-founder, Vedantu. 
 
“Visibility into the roadmap of rolling out of digital initiatives with faster implementation cycles will bring predictability and help Ed-Tech startups plan and scale better. LIVE online Learning on mobile devices would act as the gateway to unlimited knowledge and learning wherein teachers from top cities would be able to deliver LIVE Lectures to students in remote villages and guide them to do better. Access to top quality global content would truly present equal opportunity of learning,” he added. 
 
Some niche startups 
 
Ankita Tandon, Chief Operating Officer, CouponDunia said, “Through the 'Start Up India, Stand Up India' initiative, we expect our government to simplify all these processes and make it easier for the start-up community to not only set up but also scale up their business. Our Government should also encourage micro-entrepreneurship by investing and dedicating an exclusive fund for entrepreneurs apart from the one’s provided by the VCs and angel investors. Furthermore, the government should address the challenges faced by start-up companies and set up proper compliance and redressal forums for addressing these issues. Any start is a good start.” 
 
Styletag founder, Sanjay Shroff wants specialised options for niche start-ups. 
 
 News App startup 
 
Deepit Purkayastha, Co-Founder &amp; Chief Strategy Officer, Inshorts talks about his expectations. 
 
1. Take measures for building a vibrant Students Entrepreneurship ecosystem - Government should work towards building a vibrant startup ecosystem in colleges. This could be done by firstly including Entrepreneurship as a course at School level, secondly designing core and optional curriculums on Entrepreneurship at College level, thirdly by providing Students the liberty to be able to startup in college and complete their degrees later if requested (nothing will make students more employable than having started their own venture) and finally, by enhancing the startup-academia interaction across the board in technical as well as non-technical universities. 
 
2. Include more contemporary and startups relevant skills in the college curriculum - A lot of new skills which Startups need in prospective recruits viz. Product Management, App Development, Content Marketing, UI/UX Management etc are not being imparted in the formal education system. The government should work towards either inclusion of these modules in the current educational curriculum or make it easier for private players to impart these modules as complimentary courses with the existing degrees. If we need India to become a Startup nation, we need resources that are employable and productive for startups right after college. 
 
Tourism startup 
 
RoomsTonite CPO, Karthick highlights some key measures which he would like to see being introduced tomorrow. 
 
1. Government should allocate at least $500mn every six months. 
 
2. Measures should be taken to develop the infrastructure. 
 
3. I would really appreciate it if there’s a Ministry of start-ups. 
 
Personal assistant startup 
 
Suman Howlader, CEO and Founder of Carzippi wants a central unified policy framework across India for budding entrepreneurs. 
 
<keyword id="6354553" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="real-estate">Real Estate</keyword> startup 
 
Zenify cofounder, Sudarshan wants an environment where there are good mentors to mentor. 
 
Fashion startup 
 
Mirraw said as part of the initiative, Government should look into easing the process of starting a business by making the entire process technology based. 
 
Health startup 
 
“We believe that, in order to encourage young blood to join the entrepreneurship bandwagon, all the government needs to do is, take steps to boost the confidence by improving faith in the system. This can be achieved mainly through transparent legal processes in the form of a checklist that an entrepreneur needs to follow in order to setup and start making money. Of course, it is very important that the costs involved for the same should be such that the poor in the country can afford. Even if the government managed to encourage youngsters to start a business, it becomes equally important to support them grow, for which, a "simple to follow" and “affordable" tax regime would make a huge difference,” said Anurav Rane - CEO of PlanMyMedicalTrip.com. 
 
Logistics startup 
 
Brijesh Agrawal, Founder &amp; CEO, Tolexo.com wants the following: 
 
1. The govt. establishes conducive &amp; clear policy frameworks 
 
2. Open up government projects for participation by Startups 
 
3. Build Startup Hubs / Cities - having infrastructure that helps innovate, attract global talent 
 
Will Modi address all these? We will see it tomorrow. 
 
(Image credits: indiatimes)

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A clear supply chain network will be built for B2B ecommerce portals in 2016: Brijesh Agrawal, founder of Tolexo predicts

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Indiamart share price has gone up nearly five times in last 18 months and the record profit is only a part of what’s driving it

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#DigitalIndiaWeek: Know what everyone said about PM Modi’s pet project

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Dear PM Modi, this is what the Indian startup community expects from ‘Startup India, Standup India’

Usha Rani Das