 "WalmartLabs to tap talent")
After global information (IT) technology majors Facebook and Twitter, US retail giant Walmart is likely to make its first acquisition in India in the start-up space.
WalmartLabs, engineering arm of Walmart that drives its e-commerce business, is engaged in discussions with around 10 IT start-ups, with team size varying from nine people to 60. The company is open to making acquisitions or even a deep collaboration with these firms, and money is not a constraint, Jeremy King, chief technology officer of Walmart Global eCommerce and head of @WalmartLabs, told Business Standard. “I am pretty much interested in companies in areas like supply chain, ad tech, analytics and anything that has to do with mobile shopping,” said King.
“We are not very close to closing anything. Right now, we are in the beginning of the process; it takes at least two months. If we find something really attractive, we should be able to do it,” said K Jayakumar, vice-president and managing director, WalmartLabs India.
“Most of the people we’ve acquired over the past four years are still working with us. That’s because they really believe in what we’re doing, which is why they’ve applied their technology and teams so that it has to be a mutually beneficial relationship,” said King.
WalmartLabs employs around 3,000 people globally.
The booming start-up ecosystem, of late, is attracting a lot of global companies to forge partnerships, fund them or even buy them out. In January this year, micro-blogging site Twitter acquired mobile marketing and analytics platform ZipDial for estimated $30-40 million, making it the company’s first acquisition in India. In December 2013, Facebook acquired Little Eye Labs, a Bengaluru-based start-up, which develops software tools for analysing the performance of Android apps. In the same month, internet giant Google acquired Impermium, a cyber security firm that was co-founded by Vishwanath Ramarao, Naveen Jamal and Mark Risher, for an undisclosed amount. Late last year, Yahoo! acquired Bookpad, a city-based start-up that develops file editing and collaboration software.
“The start-up ecosystem in India is changing really fast. I would say, four years ago they were all just copycats of some other start-up they’d seen in some other parts of the world. And frankly, it was a lot lower scale and not really innovative. I’m actually seeing more innovative start-ups now than in the past,” added King.
INDIA PUSH
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WalmartLabs has made around 15 acquisitions so far, globally
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Looking at acquiring start-ups in India in supply chain, adtech, mobile shopping space
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Has evaluated around 10 start-ups in India
- Plans to grow India headcount to 1,000 by mid-2016
