Flipkart, Ola And Other Set Up Lobby Group Indiatech.org

Homegrown internet companies are coming together to launch an industry body, Indiatech.org, to solely fight for local companies and battle against ‘deep pocketed’ global competitors. Internet startups such as the ecommerce firm Flipkart, ride hailing startup Ola, travel portal MakeMyTrip and others are reportedly in talks to create a lobby group focused on weeding out competition from foreign players like Amazon and Uber. The formation of the lobby group has been in the works for over a year now and aims to provide a cohesive voice and structured platform to local players.

The lobby group, which will be led by Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal, will represent the interests of local ventures for favorable laws in the digital commerce market space. It will function as a  nonprofit organization which will also focus on issues like job creation, skills training and providing resources to scale up Internet businesses.

A news daily reported, online classifieds player Quikr and messaging application Hike are the other founding members of the group. Sachin Bansal, as the founding president and chairman, will appoint an ex-IAS officer as the CEO for the group by next month. The formation of the lobby group, which plans to become the Nasscom of the startup space, signals an aggressive stance by the country’s top Internet entrepreneurs in promoting homegrown companies.

The aim of the body will be to push the government to make policies favoring domestic startups as some of these companies are struggling to fight competition from global players. Ola founder Bhavishg Aggarwal and Sachin Bansal were the first entrepreneurs to raise their voice against the aggressive spending by overseas companies. The group has also invited investors such as SoftBank, Tiger Global Management, Steadview Capital, Accel India and Matrix Partners India, to be a part of the initiative.

In June this year, the All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA) also asked the government to institute a regulator for the ecommerce sector.  AIOVA has reportedly requested for a grievance cell for online sellers and a set of accounting and auditing standards.