Amazon India has organized the second edition of its annual summit called ‘Amazon Smbhav Summit 2021’ virtually from April 15 to 18, 2021. In which Amazon has launched a $250million Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund to support the digitization of small and medium businesses (SMBs), Agriculture, and Healthcare in India.
- Union Minister Jitendra Singh addressed the Summit (online) on the theme of ‘Unlocking Infinite Possibilities for Digital India’.
- Union minister Nitin Gadkari also has addressed the summit virtually and stated that India will become the number one electric vehicle (EV) maker in the world. As there is no shortage of lithium, he has mentioned the 100 percent manufacture of lithium-ion batteries in the next six months.
- Amazon India is committed to include 10,000 EVs as part of its delivery fleet by 2025.
- In the first edition of Smbhav last year, Amazon announced an investment of USD 1 billion to digitally enable 10 million Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Three important initiatives under Smbhav 2021:
Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund:
- The $250 million Venture Fund will be invested in startups and entrepreneurs focusing on technology innovations in SMB digitization, Agriculture and Healthcare.
- As part of the Venture Fund, Amazon announced an $10 million investment in “M1xchange”– a startup focusing on MSMEs (Micro Small and Medium Enterprises) M1xchange connects MSMEs with banks & financiers (and vice versa).
Local Shops on Amazon program:
- Through this, Amazon planned to onboard 1 million offline retailers and local neighborhood shops on Amazon.in by 2025 and provides them opportunities to be part of programs like I Have Space and Amazon Easy.
Tribal empowerment:
- It also launched ‘Spotlight North East’, to bring 50,000 artisans, weavers, and small businesses, online from the 8 states in the NorthEast region of India by 2025. The company will also help to boost the exports like tea, honey, and spices, etc.
These three initiatives reaffirm Amazon’s pledge (in 2020) to digitize 10million SMBs, enable $10billion in exports, and create 1million jobs by 2025.
Amazon Pay launched a new app – ‘Amazon Pay for Business’:
Amazon Pay, the fintech subsidiary of Amazon India, launched the ‘Amazon Pay for Business’ app to simplify the payment needs of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and it has on boarded around 5 million merchants.
AWS launched a set of software solutions ‘Amazon Digital Suite’, to support SMBs:
Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched a set of software solutions ‘Amazon Digital Suite’, to support small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India in partnership with 7 AWS Partner Network (APN) Technology Partners, including Razorpay, Freshworks, greytHR, ClearTax, Zoho, Vinculum, and OkCredit in areas such as accounting, customer support, and human resources.
Recent Related News:
On February 19, 2021 Amazon India signed Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with Directorate General Resettlement(DGR) to provide work opportunities to ex-service personnel of the armed force(Army, Air force, Navy) and their families across its network in India.
On February 16, 2021, Amazon India announced that it will begin its 1st Device Manufacturing Line in India for production of electronic devices at Chennai by the end of 2021. It has collaborated with Contract Manufacturer Cloud Network Technology, a subsidiary of Foxconn for the manufacturing process.
About Amazon:
Establishment – 1994
Headquarters – Washington, United States
Founder & CEO – Jeff Bezos
About Amazon India:
Establishment – June 2013
Manager (Country Head of India) – Amit Agarwal
Headquarters – Hyderabad, Telangana
