Jan 16, 2018

If you come and tell us you are trying to change the world, chances are we will not give you money,” says Aavishkaar’s Vineet Rai, deadpan. His venture equity funds, initially set up in 2001, and now worth almost $300 million have been steadily making investments across India’s low-income states, building enterprises, creating jobs and lifting people out of poverty. He continues, “Rather than you saying it, does your business show it? Then we will give you money.”

That’s not all. Rai dislikes being called an ‘impact investor’, that is, someone who invests with the intention of generating a positive social impact along with financial returns. “They [impact investors] carry a cross on their shoulders about changing the world. That’s not what we want. Our work is to make investments in distressed or difficult areas. If in the process the world changes, that’s great,” the 46-year-old tells Forbes India.

Rai’s story isn’t just about being contrarian. Instead, his is a story of extraordinary risk-taking and tightly-managed expansion. Consider Aavishkaar’s investment in Milk Mantra in 2011. The Odisha-based dairy company existed as a mere plan on paper at the time. And tilling of land or animal husbandry wasn’t commonplace in the rural regions of the state. At the front end, too, the organised procurement of milk in eastern India stood at 10 percent, compared to the national average of 23 percent, says Srikumar Misra, the Milk Mantra founder.

“Capital would generally never go there to create a dairy,” reasons Rai. But he sniffed an opportunity. Given the fairly large number of cities in Odisha, Rai knew that the demand for packaged milk was prevalent. If a local supply chain could be built, it would create employment for thousands in the state’s remote regions.

Jan 13 2018

NCR Corporation, a global leader in omni-channel solutions has announced completion of its sale of a significant portion of its assets and related customer contracts in respect of its outsourced ATM business in Kerala, Bihar, Jharkhand and Lakshadweep to Electronic Payment and Services Pvt. Ltd. (EPS), a leading payment system company headquartered in Mumbai.

With this agreement, EPS will be reaching a new milestone by January 2018 to be managing more than 11,000 ATMs in India on behalf of leading banks.

“This deal is strategic to our growth strategy, as it reiterates EPS’s continued commitment to offer reliable, robust payments services to its customers and reinforcing the relationship with its business partners and stakeholders,” said chairman EPS, Mani Mamallan.

“Not only is EPS the fastest growing, professionally managed Payments System Company, but also now in the league of the most valuable company,” added Mamallan.

“The decision to sell a significant portion of our MoF business aligns with our vision to focus on software driven hardware enabled growth supported by end-to-end managed services,” said managing director NCR India, Navroze Dastur.

“NCR is more focused than ever to innovate and enable the next generation of consumer experiences and productivity gains,” added Dastur.

Jan 13 2018

Mumbai: In a sign of consolidation in the brown-label ATM business, NCR India — an arm of the world’s largest ATM manufacturer — has sold close to 4,000 machines in its portfolio to Electronic Payment & Services (EPS).

Brown-label ATMs are those machines that display the bank’s signage but are owned and operated by managed service providers who recover fees from banks.

Following this deal, EPS will end up with a network of 11,000 ATMs, which it will manage on behalf of banks. According to EPS executive director Sanjay Kapoor, the industry is witnessing consolidation and EPS is well placed to play the role of a consolidator. “While we are a big player in the ATM infrastructure space, we are also in payment processing and solutions as well,” said Kapoor.

“The decision aligns with our vision to focus on software-driven, hardware-enabled growth supported by end-to-end managed services,” said Navroze Dastur, MD, NCR India. “NCR is more focused than ever to innovate and enable the next generation of consumer experiences and productivity gains,” he added. The country has around 2,30,000 ATMs and EPS has around 5% of the ATMs in India deployed for various banks under its portfolio. After demonetisation, ATM deployment has slowed as the shift in currency composition to higher denomination notes has hit transactions. Several lenders are rationalising their ATM networks.

Jan 11 2018

NCR Corporation has sold a part of its India ATM operations, while Education Catalyst Fund has committed $2.4 million to 3 education startups. Also, 37.37 North Capital has invested an undisclosed amount into SalesPro.

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Jan 9 2018

Sunil Munjal wants to improve the lives of artisans and connect them with markets in India and overseas
Image: Amit Verma

When it comes to impact investing, Sunil Munjal, chairman of Hero Enterprise, is the newsmaker of 2017. In April, Munjal wrote a cheque of ₹100 crore to Aavishkaar, an early-stage, social venture capital firm. The investment, dubbed the biggest such by an Indian HNI, was part of Aavishkaar’s ₹2,000-crore Aavishkaar Bharat Fund to bankroll startups as well as other companies that operate in sectors such as agriculture, financial services, renewable energy and health care.

The 57-year-old entrepreneur, who moved out of his family’s flagship company Hero MotoCorp in 2016, is also a votary of India’s traditional arts and crafts. “If it can be branded and positioned appropriately, it will truly build India’s soft power,” Munjal tells Forbes India in an interview. Excerpts:

Jul 26 2017

We are staring at an apocalypse. This can only be averted if efficient practices are integrated into industries and services

The future of water will be a gamble — resting entirely on the way we decide to play the game here on. Either we continue to use water irresponsibly, threatening the very existence of this planet, or we adopt sustainable and smart water management practices to build a water secure future.

Scenario 1: Status quo

By 2050, India’s total water demand will increase 32 per cent from now. Industrial and domestic sectors will account for 85 per cent of the additional demand. Over-exploitation of groundwater, failure to recharge aquifers and reduction in catchment capacities due to uncontrolled urbanisation are all causes for the precarious tilt in the water balance.

If the present rate of groundwater depletion persists, India will only have 22 per cent of the present daily per capita water available in 2050, possibly forcing the country to import its water.

30 Jun 2017

Outstanding performance and sheer hard work has put Nisha Dutt on the global platform. Nisha, CEO of Hyderabad-based Intellecap, received the “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” award at the 7th Asian Awards in London recently.

Asian Awards recognise and reward exemplary achievements across 14 categories. Nisha was presented with the award for leading her company to become a renowned enterprise that focuses on creating sustainable enterprises and making an impactful change for the undeserved communities. Starting off as a manager with the company, she has risen to the ranks of a board of director. “I was working as a consultant in the United States, but I had the urge to do something more meaningful. Also, staying away from family for long was a challenge. Just when I was pondering over it, I got an opportunity to work with Intellecap in Hyderabad,” says Nisha.

However, working on social issues at the root level was not easy. “Coming from an army background, I was used to travelling to different places and meeting new people. When it was my time to travel and talk to people in the interiors of India and Africa about taking up the challenge to improve the social structure in their villages, the travelling didn’t bother me but convincing people that the initiatives are for their betterment was a task. People resist trying different things even if that is beneficial,” she says.

23-Jun-17

Nisha Dutt, Chief Executive Officer of Hyderabad-based Intellecap has been honoured with the “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” award at The 7th Asian Awards in London.

She is the first Indian woman leader to have been conferred with this recognition. This award has been presented to her for leading Intellecap to become a globally known enterprise that focuses on social capital and impacts the under served communities.

The Asian Awards function held recently is an annual awards ceremony, was founded by businessman and philanthropist Paul Sagoo through his Lemon Group Company. The awards is presented in 14 categories. Earlier winners from India include Ratan Tata, Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and singers Asha Bhosle and Zayn Malik to name a few. In the Social Entrepreneur category, personalities such as Professor Muhammad Yunus, Masa Kogure and Vikram Patel have been honored over the years.

As CEO, Nisha guides the global positioning of Intellecap business. Her key contribution has been integrating technology with challenges of healthcare, financial services, incubation and conceptualizing programs such as Innovations Labs and Credit-tree, according to a press release.

Jun 5 2017

The moment we think about the future, and as far as 2050, imagery moves to automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, human race being super powerful, and every individual being empowered with choices. In this milieu, gender is often not considered the most exciting topic and is treated as a ‘women’s issue’. It is, however, critical that gender be brought to the forefront of public discourse, as something that impacts society as a whole.

Beyond gender roles, towards gender participation

In India, while we often hark back to mythology and culture to give evidence of the importance and dignity of women, it is a hard fact that India is failing its women today. India was ranked a lowly 108 on the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report (2015); highlighting the need for specific and concerted efforts to achieve gender equality in the country. Women will have a major role in how the country is shaped – through public policy and business leadership.

The inclusion of women in the democratic process of shaping public policy is critical to ensure fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities between women and men. When more women are involved in public policy making, Governments become more open, democratic and responsive to citizens. Although India has had a woman prime minister, there continue to be grossly insufficient women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies. The current Lok Sabha has just over 12% women members, against a global average of over 22%. Legislative assemblies of states in the country have, on an average, less than 10% women members. This indicates the need to encourage active participation of women in building the democratic capital of the country. A start has already been made in this direction. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments mandate a reservation of 33% seats in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in the country. As a consequence, today, close to 50% of elected representatives in PRIs are women. Numerically, that amounts to more elected women representatives than the rest of the world put together. It is only a matter of a couple of decades that India will have over 40% women members in Lok Sabha and state legislative agencies. This bodes well for the role of women in the future of Indian democracy, and indeed, for Indian democracy itself.

May 29 2017

Collateral Medical, a pan-India online distributor of medical devices, has raised $3.5 million in Series A investment from small and medium enterprises focused private equity fund Carpediem Capital.

The funds will be used to strengthen its distribution capabilities, expanding the service network and strengthening the IT infrastructure. Intellecap’s Investment Banking Group has advised Collateral Medical on the deal.

“It has been wonderful developing a platform to serve doctors, standalone clinics and small hospitals who struggle to source medical devices. The fund infusion will help us improve and enhance our capabilities to serve medical community better and we are excited to have Carpediem Capital join us as trusted partners in our journey for the next level of growth,” Nikhilesh Tiwari, Founder and CEO, Collateral Medical, said.

“With the focus of ensuring reasonable pricing, we helped thousands of doctors in 400 plus districts in 28 states to bring their cost down,” Sanjay Jha, Director, Collateral Medical, added.

Gagandeep Bakshi, Head, Investment Banking, Intellecap, said: “Collateral Medical has created a capital efficient distribution model that has resulted in price transparency and efficient outreach in Tier II and III cities. They have also managed customer stickiness and retention by providing after sales service. They are one of the only players in the market addressing the pain points of both suppliers and customers.”