Enterprise

Why is Amazon starting a $250 million venture fund in India?

Aims to bring 1 million offline stores online by 2025

Published

April 16, 2021

Shivam Vahia

Amazon has announced a US$ 250 million venture fund called Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund that’ll invest in small and medium-sized businesses. The goal is to boost India’s export by using technology and the marketplace’s reach.

Amazon Smbhav will be focusing on the digitization of small businesses, agri-tech innovations to raise farmer productivity, and health tech for quality universal healthcare. The fund was announced at Amazon India’s annual Smbhav Summit.

It intends to tap offline sellers and professionals via the fund and on onboarding a million shops by 2025. Another initiative is “Spotlight NorthEast,” which will bring 50,000 artisans, weavers, and small businesses online from India’s North-Eastern states. The region is known for its local produce like honey, tea, and spices.

The announcement came at a fireside chat at the summit between Andy Jassy, incoming CEO of Amazon and Amit Agarwal, Global Senior VP and Country Head, Amazon India. They also revealed the first bet Amazon was making through the new fund — invoice discounting platform M1xchange, in which it has led a $10 million investment.

Amazon said it created close to 300,000 jobs since January 2020 and one million in total. It also boasted of having almost 70,000 sellers, exporting Indian goods to other markets totaling US$ 3 billion in sales.

The timing of Amazon India’s announcement is key because the e-commerce companies have been barred from delivering in the state of Maharashtra amid a Coronavirus-led curfew. While the restrictions are regional, businesses are unable to get necessary and basic supplies. In a work-from-home world, getting an emergency mice/keyboard or mattress should be easy via digitization, but there are antitrust concerns.

Due to a lockdown, offline sellers cannot operate and thus, don’t want online businesses to eat their share. The Narendra Modi-led government has historically sided with the offline traders since they constitute a majority of India’s market. The offline market is still the king, and the gap between the two is very substantial.

If online players operate exclusively for too long, they’ll start gobbling up market share gradually, killing the smaller businesses. While the aim is to maintain a level-playing field, the current rules aren’t helping anybody at the end of the day. The region also fails to collect indirect taxes over the possible transactions, leading to a cash crunch while the pandemic rages.

The FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) rules for the retail market were changed in 2019, meaning Amazon India could no longer directly sell its products. It had to act like a marketplace to maintain healthy competition since 100 percent FDI is allowed in e-commerce as a tech platform, but not as a retailer.

Thanks to the fund, Amazon can show its commitment to India and its initiatives to encourage online trade. India’s new farm laws also make it easier for private companies to invest in agriculture or partner with farmers for contracts.

Amazon had announced an investment of US$1 billion in January 2020 and its purpose was also the same — digitizing India’s small and medium businesses. Founder Jeff Bezos had said back then, “We are doing this now because it is working. And when something works you should double down on it.”

For now, the concerns of a monopoly are diminished because Amazon is going up against India’s homegrown Flipkart, which Walmart now backs. Reliance is also eyeing this segment and has already kicked off a hyperlocal service called JioMart. Lastly, many other retailers like Dmart, Tata CliQ + Bigbasket, and Grofers are available.

Enterprise

ACMobility Launches ChargeFleet: Seamless solution for businesses

B2B solution for corporate fleets and transport groups

Published

February 18, 2026

GadgetMatch

Ayala Group’s ACMobility has launched ChargeFleet, a new B2B digital solution for corporate fleets and transport groups.

The new service introduces a shareable digital wallet that streamlines charging expenses, reduces manual tracking, and improves cost control.

As more organizations explore electrifying their mobility operations, many continue to face operational challenges — including fragmented payment systems, reimbursement delays, and limited visibility over charging usage.

ChargeFleet addresses these gaps by introducing a centralized, shareable digital wallet. Here, fleet managers can allocate and monitor charging credits across multiple drivers across a single platform.

The system is a seamless process designed for long-term usage and easy deployment across any organization.

Once integrated, ACMobility assigns charging credits to the client’s fleet manager. The manager then can distribute these to multiple drivers. Meanwhile, the latter will be able to see and use their assigned credits via the Evro app.

ChargeFleet is available as a prepaid product through the ChargeFleet Store. Users can buy offers via GCash or credit card. No application process is required.

Looking ahead, ACMobility will continue to enhance the ChargeFleet experience with exclusive value-added perks integrated through Evro and Power on Wheels.

The upcoming features highlight ACMobility’s ongoing push to provide a future-proof support system for the evolving needs of their customers’ businesses.

Enterprise

Sony teams up with 13 companies for sustainable global supply chain

Sustainability through introduction of renewable plastics

Published

February 9, 2026

GadgetMatch

Sony, along with several companies, have established the world’s first global supply chain for the production of renewable plastics that can be used in Sony’s high-performance audiovisual products.

The supply chain consists of 14 companies across five countries and regions. The various plastic materials manufacture through this supply are slated for use in Sony’s products that will launch worldwide.

High-performance products such as audiovisual equipment involve a wide variety of plastics. The result is a complex supply chain that makes it difficult to visualize and manage the entire flow.

Additionally, plastic components that require high performance in terms of flame resistance and optical properties cannot be fully replaced with plastics from material recycling.

To address these challenges, these 14 companies have collaborated to visualize the existing supply chain for Sony’s products:

Sony Corporation
Mitsubishi Corporation
ADEKA CORPORATION
CHIMEI Corporation
ENEOS Corporation
Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corporation
Hanwha Impact Corporation
Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd.
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
Neste Corporation
Qingdao Haier New Material Development Co.
Ltd., SK Geo Centric Co., Ltd.
Toray Industries, Inc.
Toray Advanced Materials Korea Inc.

Sustainability through renewable plastics

The new supply chain created will enable the production of multiple types of renewable plastics from biomass resources with a mass balance approach.

This allows Sony to proactively source raw materials for its products with quality, as well as properties equivalent to virgin fossil-based plastics.

Defining the supply chain also helps the companies track and document GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions data in a verifiable way.

This allows participating companies to leverage the data to advance efforts to reduce their carbon footprint going forward.

Sony’s initiative with a wide range of global partners is part of the “Creating NEW from reNEWable materials” jointly launched by the electronics giant and Mitsubishi.

It aims to achieve zero usage of virgin fossil-based plastics through the introduction of renewable plastics.

Enterprise

realme is reportedly going back to being an OPPO sub-brand

All scheduled phones will still launch on time, though.

Published

January 9, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

A popular story among Chinese smartphone brands is whenever a sub-brand spinning off into its own independent entity. A less common one is when an independent entity suddenly merges back into the main entity. And yet, that’s the story we have today. realme is reportedly going back to being a sub-brand of OPPO.

If you don’t remember realme’s time as a sub-brand, then it’s hardly your fault. It’s been a long while since realme was considered a sub-brand. In 2018, the brand spun off on its own to form one of the most popular names in the Chinese smartphone space.

Today, via Leiphone, realme will return to OPPO as a sub-brand. Current realme CEO Sky Li will still retain his responsibilities heading the brand. Plus, all products on the current release schedule will still come out as planned.

However, starting this year, realme will start reintegrating back into OPPO, particularly through the latter’s after-sales programs. OnePlus will also follow the same structure going forward.

Currently, realme has not officially announced the move. That said, we also don’t know how the brand will address the reported change. It’s possible that the shift is just internal and has no effect on how the brand faces the public. For now, only time will tell.