Amul set to Take over International Dairy market! | Roundup #147 | The Startup Operator

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of the Startup Operator Roundup. I am Roshan Karyapa

[00:00:05] Now also have with me a very hungover Gunjan Sa here as well. So if this is your first time listening to the podcast we record startup content

[00:00:14] so we talk to founders, operators, publish one episode every week and on the weekends we record a roundup where we talk about what's really happening in the ecosystem

[00:00:23] some new policy changes, fund races, product releases and what have you. So Gunjan can you tell us what we're talking about today?

[00:00:32] Yeah we'll dive straight into that but hey thanks for covering up anytime man.

[00:00:38] Okay so in this week's podcast we'll be talking about the candidate conversation that Prime Minister Modi had with Bill Gates last week at the Prime Minister's residence

[00:00:47] and our beloved brand Amul is now going to enter the US markets. Nice within just one week they're gonna launch four items over there.

[00:00:58] That'll be awesome. Yeah Indian fintechs are not having the greatest of weeks they are being hit with notices from the income tax department

[00:01:08] and on the manufacturing side ZTWK has recently backed an order from Indian oil to set up 1400 EV charging stations across the petrol pumps.

[00:01:17] Fantastic. Swiggy has been spending over 125 million dollars to keep InstaMark functioning.

[00:01:23] Right and I think they are planning for it IPO very soon and if this continues that's really gonna take a hit on their valuations.

[00:01:31] So stay tuned and let's get started.

[00:01:39] Russian house a week. The weeks been okay I mean the usual for an RCB fan right two matches in a row not that we expected any differently in Bangalore that too yeah I mean I don't know why we support the

[00:01:54] facility many more but yeah hope it's been better for you guys but yeah KKR one so yeah good luck man. Yeah but what feeling man they're off four catches imagine.

[00:02:07] Hey the lesser said the better right let's move on please okay KKR I didn't watch the match. I just see the results I know I know before and anyway right so

[00:02:20] Okay let's let's talk business. Prime Minister Modi hosted Bill Gates at his residence and they spoke about a wide variety of topics ranging from art

[00:02:30] film intelligence digital public infrastructure and efforts to combat climate change in this conversation the Prime Minister emphasized his dedication to bridge the digital divide in India.

[00:02:41] He has been instrumental in extending the technology infrastructure and taken it to the deepest corners of our country Prime Minister also highlighted the use of AI at the G20 summit and Kashy Tamil Sangamam event where the Prime Minister used AI to do a live translation office speech from in the English to the local languages.

[00:03:01] Bill Gates really seemed impressed but for me I was watching the entire conversation what I really like the most is our Prime Minister promoting his own app.

[00:03:11] Yeah I'm saying hey people don't need to click if people want to click pictures with me go to the app go to the photo take a selfie yeah I will put me there yeah that's pretty quick as that's pretty impressive I should say yeah great conversation one of the better charts I have seen with the Prime Minister in recent times helps that you know Bill Gates

[00:03:30] Bill Gates is not a journalist right so but yeah look I think the world is very envious of our whole digital public infrastructure right how we sort of being able to impact our population scale with these very fundamental things right whether it's payments or identity and so on right and Bill was very curious my friend Bill was very curious about you know how we do these things.

[00:03:59] I think look couple of things right I think this is perhaps the first or second Prime Minister that we've had who's actually grown up in some amount of poverty right I mean the previous one was Lal Bhagadusha 3 I think right so he is very intimately connected with the large mass of population who are in you know in that kind of circumstances right so

[00:04:24] I love the point that he made that you know it's not technology for technology say great technology has to be actually useful to someone and that is when someone will benefit from it and will use it as well right so I like what he said about women's empowerment right I mean saying that you know women in the villages don't have to be relegated to like just milking cows and whatnot he spoke about drone these yeah

[00:04:51] yeah I mean pretty awesome right I mean they've become pilots and plenty of other things right I really liked his perspective on AI for instance very spoke about you know having to compete with the chat GPT you know I think some of us can take a leaf out of that right and not make all the show notes just straight off of chat GPT but all of this stuff right and you know Bill gets had this one very interesting question

[00:05:21] on you know how did he manage the vaccine hesitancy right which in the US in the west was a big thing right people not taking that vaccines and so on and here again he spoke about how it was framed as

[00:05:32] virus versus life and not virus versus government right and yeah it's been you know couple of years since we had any amount of COVID situations right so yeah that's what I mean thank God

[00:05:48] another thing that he highlighted was that you know how the Prime Minister has been trying to democratize technology right and what he meant by that he wants the population to trust technology

[00:06:00] I mean there's been a lot of narratives that he has on a take over the jobs people are gonna lose their income but he emphasized that how the government is implementing tech projects as you mentioned right to deliver benefits to the last mile benefits

[00:06:15] right and I think India is doing a pretty commendable job at that yeah see look a lot of people in India have significantly benefited from technology right I mean the circumstances have changed

[00:06:26] people have been able to climb up the social ladder because of technology so this narrative of technology being this massive evil thing

[00:06:34] that's gonna like loot you off your privacy and everything that kind of narrative will not fly in a country like India right it's more of a sort of a western narrative where you know people are prosperous to a certain extent and it's all doomsday after that right but yeah very interesting chat if you guys haven't seen it I highly encourage that you go check it out

[00:06:53] we can in the description below yeah we'll link it in the description below so we're off to a good start giving the producers some work already yeah

[00:07:02] yeah all right so next up Amul is gonna expand in the US and I think Amul is already Amul is present in 50 plus countries already the first time that they're entering the US markets

[00:07:16] they have tied up with 108 year old dairy corporation in the US the Michigan milk producers association and while the US counterpart will be taking care of the whole sourcing and packaging the good start cooperative milk marketing federation or the GC MMF

[00:07:34] they'll be taking care of the marketing aspects of it they're launching Amul Taza Amul gold Amul Shakti and Amul Slim and trim also any any guesses of what the hot cell will be I think it'll just be the Amul paneer if you ask me yeah I mean or maybe maybe the Taza one or the spiced

[00:07:55] I think I'll just say some there are a lot of slim and trim and vegan and non GMO and all of these variants there right so I think that will probably get lost with the crowd right but yeah this is utterly butterly delicious news

[00:08:12] right Amul has been look Amul has been a pioneer on many fronts right whether it is the advertising that we just referenced right kind of capturing the state of the nation the mood of the public and being very intimately connected with our social life

[00:08:30] right to second I mean the business model itself in terms of co-ops and and how they sort of scale that right so yeah fantastic come in Amul also launched their protein powder by the way

[00:08:44] the pro not not just a protein powder I think the protein drinks right pretty amazing man 30 bucks 20 30 bucks and yeah you get like 20 grams of protein or something

[00:08:54] which is awesome I mean considering that you know the way basically is milk waste right this should have been done ages ago and it's a very profitable business

[00:09:04] the Amul protein no I haven't but yeah I mean I will be on the lookout I mean I've been thinking of I think you have to order it directly from their website

[00:09:11] is it okay interesting so yeah but what like not a big fan of Amul milk

[00:09:21] right I mean we get is more moved on to the hardest of yeah so on to our next topic over the past few weeks the IT department has been knocking on doors of some of the Fintech companies in the country

[00:09:35] over funding that they have raised the notices which are served under section 68 of the income tax act have club the investments received by startups with the income that they have earned

[00:09:47] and tax and penalties have been levied on the combined amount for instance one startup that is registered with DP IIT has been asked to pay 37 crores in tax and penalty for a funding of 40 crore rupees by VC investors

[00:10:00] section 68 of the income tax act allows authorities to tax capital raised by a company as income if it face to adequately explain the nature and source of the funds

[00:10:09] not typically DP IIT registered startups do not face such scrutiny but some of the companies facing tax demands claim that they have furnished relevant shareholder agreements for assessment

[00:10:20] moreover if an affected startup decides to appeal against the tax demands it first has to deposit 20% of the overall tax demand now do you think that is fair

[00:10:31] look we spoke about ease of doing business and everything and one of the things I mentioned there was all of this regulation and compliance right

[00:10:39] the IIT department for many many years in fact you know under various governments we have always said that they are one of these like extraordinarily roving cavalier type of folks

[00:10:52] and I am in the right I mean who can call into question anything and anyone basically in fact that is what the congress government or other opposition is saying now because they have been slapped with the 1700 crore penalty as well

[00:11:05] maybe somebody trying to meet their financial leo targets or whatever it is I mean it could just be that but yeah I mean I hope that the minister for IIT and so on just intervene and figure this out

[00:11:21] because it doesn't obviously like set the right tone for sure but all these the all these various government bodies have been really busy this especially ED and income tax

[00:11:32] yeah look man I mean elections or no elections these guys just have a lot of work right and India has an election almost I don't know every month every

[00:11:42] few months right I mean I'm too many elections in fact right and they've been voting this just do one election one nation one election kind of theory like I mean I haven't like really studied the matter so I won't comment as such but yeah I mean the administrative activities cannot stop because of elections

[00:12:00] right so it is what it is I suppose but yeah there is an narrative of a conspiracy

[00:12:08] Z-Work last week announced that it has backed an order from Indian oil corporation to set up 1400 EV charging stations across petrol pumps in India

[00:12:18] now along with the rise of adoption in EV the government is looking to expand the infrastructure because there's a lot of push for you know for the adoption on EV but I think that will only become successful if there's infrastructure to support it

[00:12:30] as per government data nearly 9000 petrol pumps in India had EV as of July of last year so this number is only expected to grow

[00:12:40] but Z-Work fantastic company we had the founder on the podcast earlier they were one of the first manufacturing unicorns in the country when there is funding during the lockdowns and they have done pretty well they've expanded across verticals

[00:12:54] they have reached funding what should I take on that yeah so Z-Work was Z-Work off business Bizongo a bunch of these folks right I mean I think they pioneered this whole SaaS plus marketplace plus financing kind of model

[00:13:08] so even when I spoke to Amrith about a couple of years or more back right I mean he did mention that they were going to verticalize along a few of the supply chains and start delivering some of this stuff themselves

[00:13:20] right and I think this is something similar right around the same initiative so fantastic stuff man I mean at proto swings right Shashankhaya has been pioneering this wide shift into marketing

[00:13:34] right and I hope that you know we make all kinds of things right from ball bearings to smartphones to yeah what the hardware manufacturer hardware startups has been becoming a trend yeah

[00:13:46] yeah it's cool for sure it's cool right I mean look at the response that we've got for ethereal or orange wood and stuff right so we're going to have the founder of Solinas I'm not sure if you heard of these guys they were on shark tank as well they have a robot that kind of cleans all these drains and so on

[00:14:06] right so yeah there was a company across a carela beast company them to I think they also have something similar to three of them yeah possibly the same one yeah please hungover so you can't relate to us too

[00:14:50] valuations could be 20.3 to 26% lower than Zomato's valuation multiple now that's a big number I mean Zomato also while it listed it was valued pretty high but I mean it was

[00:15:02] absolutely higher yeah but then it corrected and now Zomato stocks are doing pretty well yeah but now they've demonstrated the fact that they can be profitable

[00:15:10] right and so they've also streamlined their business they shut down a lot of their you know international arms consolidated within India yeah look the whole blanket Insta Mart Dunsook and our business I mean I'll stick my

[00:15:24] account and say I don't think it can ever be profitable right it's a growth business not a profitable business you know so I don't know how you can make any kind

[00:15:34] of money like delivering stuff for 150 to 200 bucks you know at one end of the value chain you're saying that you

[00:15:43] know you want an auto value of like 500 600 700 bucks so that you have a healthy amount of margin to play with and at the other end you're happy you know

[00:15:52] delivering a couple of liters of milk and veggie veggies or cigarettes or whatever else right so I don't know I don't know what the rationalist

[00:16:02] right I just feel that as of now the way I look at it I don't think it can ever make profits but then how is Zepto doing so well how come Zepto is doing so well

[00:16:12] I don't think they're profitable right I don't think they're profitable and they've not they're not doing the eight minute or nine

[00:16:18] minute delivery that they were doing all you I think it's more like 19 minutes or 20 minutes or something times have increased but I mean

[00:16:25] but even so I mean I will deliver in 10 minutes look quick commerce as such right I don't know man I really don't know if

[00:16:32] we'll be unit level profitable anytime I don't think so right so all of these Insta March blinkets and Zepto will have to figure

[00:16:42] their way to something else like some other value added service right I don't think they're going to replace the Kiran

[00:16:48] for sure can you imagine if you know this quick commerce company disappeared yeah I mean at least as a public service

[00:16:55] someone should run it right I mean the VC should fund them and you know whatever I often you know dread forgetting my keys and not

[00:17:03] having a done so or you know some kind of swiggy swiggy career to be able to like you know get my keys in time right so yeah I mean

[00:17:11] it sucks but guys please figure out your shit and I hope you guys make a lot of money and are profitable so yeah we can have a convenience

[00:17:19] yeah also don't judge don't increase the platform fee every other day you want them to be profitable and also not increase platform fee

[00:17:27] right I mean Indian consumers are the most demanding the world absolute worst and yeah classic example right there

[00:17:35] here are the notable fundries is from the past week non-banked lender Ambit, Finvest, Rays 690 crores or 82.7 million

[00:17:43] dollars from Japan based Diver securities group I finance Rays 16.2 million in debt funding from German impact investor invest in visions private funds

[00:17:54] specialty coffee brands soup co raised 10 million dollars from Nickel Karmath, Bloom Founders fund the Gauri Khan family trust Priya and John Abraham

[00:18:03] and Sangita Jindal guess people really love their coffee and clean tech startup Bamboo Rays 60 crore rupees or about 7.2 million dollars from Bloom Ventures

[00:18:14] Blue Asha capital Mumbai Angels and in this capital I really want to try soup co coffee yeah specialty coffee right and now I think you'll get promos also because it's rate funding

[00:18:25] yeah all the lot of money in performance marketing but you're very diverse financing you know D2C I suppose and clean tech yeah awesome hey

[00:18:38] very mean week though actually a few weeks so for our talk of the town section is a very nice tweet by Arintham Paul we had had him in the podcast as well

[00:18:48] he says there are three certain days in life death taxes and every year startup Jantar seeing credit ads on IPL and tons of posts on how cred makes money cred advertising

[00:18:59] credit points credit this model and what not and he says up now calm galo by and I think he has very nice encapsulated all of our sentiments in one

[00:19:08] tweet yeah I mean any new interesting credit ads that have come up I mean I haven't caught any of them but yeah I mean this is about the time the year I suppose right will create make money

[00:19:20] I don't know subscribe to start a pop it to find out in following episodes yeah

[00:19:28] so that's it folks for this week's round of we hope you enjoyed the show please do all the good stuff like share comment and please do a rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform

[00:19:38] if you send us a screenshot russian might just send your biryani your way so yeah that's it see you again next week take care have a great week bye bye

[00:19:47] wait wait wait we have a surprise visit on the studio oh yeah we have who I can't see

[00:19:53] can we just like zoom in on his face like all maybe he can zoom into the camera

[00:19:59] hey my share and subscribe there you go all right my podcast

[00:20:07] bye guys see you that was enough of you see you