How Reliance’s latest startup bet Fynd aims to help Mukesh Ambani’s e-commerce vision

What Fynd has built as a platform that connects ‘offline and online shopping’, very few platforms in India have built that as everybody knows that to move ahead in retail today, the only way is to integrate both online and offline as they independently won’t work, Google-backed Fynd — offline to online e-commerce platform’s co-founder Harsh Shah told Financial Express Online. Fynd, which recently raised Rs 295 crore from Reliance, offers in-store fashion online by partnering directly with brands. Reliance, in its BSE filing on Friday, disclosed the investment adding that it has an option to invest an additional Rs 100 crore that will likely happen by December 2021.

Fynd also offers its open API for businesses to develop omnichannel retail apps. For instance, its APIs powers Google’s What’s In Store feature for shoppers to find out products stocked in stores near them. This along with their expertise in running an O2O model is what would help Reliance in its alleged upcoming e-commerce platform. “How does the technology work, supply chain work, customer experience and post-purchase experience work is critical to understand for an e-commerce venture. While these areas have been very well defined independently for both online and offline but very few have been able to combine both online and offline. Our capability and experience in how both works in a physical retail environment, in a website of a brand and of a third party as well are what would help Reliance,” said Shah. Reliance too echoed in the filing that the investment will further enable its ‘digital and new commerce’ initiatives.