Having picked up a significant minority stake in Bangalore, India-based Dunzo, a hyper-local concierge and delivery player, Google made its first direct investment of $12 million in an Indian startup. With a chat-based interface, the Dunzo app facilitates daily tasks management — individuals can create ‘to-do lists’ and collaborate with partners / vendors to strike off the tasks from the list.
The investment is part of Google’s ‘Next Billion Users’ push, as it seeks to build an ecosystem in India across high-frequency hyper-local transactions as well as in the healthcare, financial services, and education sectors, reports the Economic Times.
“I see a change in tack,” said Rutvik Doshi, managing director at Inventus Capital and a former Googler, adding that Google probably now sees India as a large enough market to make investments. “After getting the first two billion users, Google has realized that to get the next one billion they will need to rethink their product stack and approach,” he said.
