Catamaran Ventures teams up with Amazon in India

Catamaran will own a 51% majority stake in the business, officially known as Taurus Business And Trade Services, with Amazon holding the rest. The US e-commerce giant entered India last year as a marketplace operator, providing a platform for transactions between third party businesses and consumers.

"The entity is operational across major cities and towns in India to train SME sellers in online tools and help them gain a larger customer audience for their existing merchandise and develop other offerings that will increase revenues and footfalls for SME retailers in India. The partnership will focus, accelerate and scale the inclusion of SMEs into the digital economy," Catarman said in a statement seen by The Business Standard.

It is estimated there are about 47 million SMEs in India and less than 5% have an online presence.

Amazon's arrival in India has coincided with a flurry of private equity investment in the sector's dominant domestic players. According to AVCJ Research, $622.6 million was deployed into e-commerce in the first five months of 2014, compared to $692.4 million and $302.1 million, respectively, in 2013 and 2012 as a whole.

Approximately 70% of the total invested since 2013 has gone to Flipkart and Snapdeal. The former secured a $250 million round in May, less than a week after the latter received $100 million from investors. Flipkart also acquired VC-backed fashion site Myntra in deal which valued the business at $300 million.

Technopak Advisors projected the Indian e-commerce market was worth $1 billion in 2013, or 0.2% of the overall retail market. It is expected to reach $56 billion, or 6.5%, by 2023.

Catamaran would continue to invest in ideas at various stages of evolution including start-ups, mature companies, and listed companies. The degrees of ownership could vary from taking a small minority to majority control, he added.

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• Topics
• Technology
• Consumer
• South Asia
• Expansion
• TMT
• Consumer
• India
• Growth capital
• Venture