The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) is on a mission to strengthen the India-Japan corridor. The organisation, which supports Japanese startups and enterprises either aiming to make their presence felt in the Indian market or hoping to collaborate with Indian players to expand their business globally, also lends its support to Indian startups and companies eyeing the Japanese market.

The company brought together four Japanese startups at TechSparks 2024 to discuss ‘An ecosystem of opportunities: How international startups can expand to India’. The conversation was a deep dive into the opportunities offered by India’s robust startup ecosystem and the various factors that make the country a prime location for international startups. 

The roundtable panellists included Mayank Vishwakarma, Director – Customer Success & Presales, primeNumber; Suguru Kawashima, CFO and Head of Global Business, Findy; Reiji Kobayashi, CEO and Director, Hakki Africa; and Jagjeet Singh, Managing Director, Digireha. Takashi Suzuki, Chief Director General, JETRO, moderated the panel, offering his insights and experiences.

Bringing Japanese companies to India

Suzuki-san, who has been working with JETRO for 30 years, opened the panel discussion by talking about the promise and potential of the Indian startup ecosystem. He shared that one or two Japanese startups approach him every day to understand how they can expand their business or make a connection with Indian partners and set up shop in the country.

He revealed that during his time in India, he began to see an awakening and change in the Indian startup ecosystem, especially post-COVID. Today, as many as 1,400 Japanese companies are established in India. However, these numbers lag behind China, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, and only 15% of the Japanese companies in India are small ventures. “Our biggest challenge is how we can promote more small-sized Japanese businesses in India. My ultimate hope is that there is going to be a Japanese unicorn in India, he said. 

What India holds for international startups

Delving into the opportunities that await Japanese entrepreneurs, Suzuki-san asked one simple question: “Why India?”

Vishwakarma spoke about the volumes of relevant data generated in India, citing that as a primary reason for primeNumber to want to expand to the country. He and the panellists concurred that Japanese entrepreneurs hold a common belief that if you can make it in India, you will be successful across the world. He also pointed out that India’s wide consumer base allows the company to soft launch products, get relevant feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Kawashima-san pointed out that India’s talent pool is both wide and deep. Out of the estimated 25 million engineers in the world, four to five million are from India. He emphasised the low cost of labour and credited Indian entrepreneurs with both the grit and talent to make it in the competitive Silicon Valley. 

“I have not seen many Japanese software companies succeed in the world, especially America. So many Indian founders are making their presence felt in California and across the world. I now think we need to attack from India to the global market,” he shared.

Kobayashi-san noted that Japanese companies should look to expand globally, given that the country’s population is declining. He theorised that Japanese companies can learn more from emerging markets, like India.

Navigating the maze of the Indian ecosystem

While India’s immense potential for international enterprises is one side of the coin, the complexity of its regulations, administrative issues, import, and other challenges around running a business in India comprise the other.

Kobayashi-san highlighted certain infrastructure challenges in India, highlighting power outages, infrastructural issues, and water problems. Singh, when asked about the inherent challenges in India’s healthcare sector, revealed that he had enrolled in a course at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, to understand the sector and convey the right information to his Japanese counterparts.

Panellists also shared that building the right kind of networks and partnerships in the Indian startup ecosystem can help Japanese companies reach a wider audience. Kawashima-san revealed that he made over 1,000 connections on LinkedIn in the last year, and is “slowly meeting the right people to take the business forward in India”. 

Watch the full video here:

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a cease and desist order to several NBFCs, including DMI Finance and Navi Finserv, due to supervisory concerns related to their pricing policies.

Kolkata-based Arohan Financial Services Limited and Chennai-based Asirvad Micro Finance Limited have also been asked to stop lending.

The RBI found that these companies were charging excessive interest rates and failed to adhere to regulatory guidelines, leading to restrictions on loan disbursals starting from October 21, 2024​.

These companies also breached the Fair Practices Code, with further violations in household income assessment, loan repayment capacity, and asset classification. These were highlighted through both onsite inspections and offsite data analysis, the RBI said in a circular.

“Navi Finserv is currently reviewing the circular received from the RBI and is committed to addressing all concerns raised by the regulator promptly and effectively, prioritising what’s right for our customers. The company remains dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of compliance, transparency, and customer care in its operations,” a Navi Finserv spokesperson said.

The RBI is attempting to educate its regulated entities about the responsible use of their regulatory freedoms, including maintaining fair and reasonable pricing.

DMI Finance had recently acquired the troubled buy now pay later startup ZestMoney and has been under scrutiny for its pricing practices. Navi Finserv, on the other hand, recently completed a $24.5-million personal loan securitisation transaction with Goldman Sachs (India) Finance.

Last week, during the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das emphasised concerns about the aggressive growth strategies of some NBFCs and the potential risks they pose to financial stability.

He highlighted that while the overall health of the NBFC sector remains strong, certain outliers are pursuing unsustainable practices, such as high interest rates, excessive processing fees, and target-driven growth without sufficient risk management.

This has been particularly evident in microfinance loans, credit card debt, and unsecured consumption loans​ he said.

This move is part of the RBI’s broader strategy to ensure that NBFCs and MFIs operate within a framework that protects consumers, especially in the context of small-value loans. The RBI has been actively working to mitigate issues related to unfair lending practices in the microfinance sector, particularly in light of the recent trends observed during its regulatory reviews.

(The copy was updated with Navi’s response.)

Simplismart has secured $7 million in Series A funding round led by Accel, with participation from Shastra VC, Titan Capital, and high-profile angels, including Akshay Kothari, Co-founder of Notion. 

The new capital will be used to fuel the company’s R&D and growth for their enterprise-focused MLOps orchestration platform.

“Building generative AI applications is a core need for enterprises today. However, the adoption of generative AI is far behind the rate of new developments. It’s because enterprises struggle with four bottlenecks: lack of standardised workflows, high costs leading to poor ROI, data privacy, and the need to control and customise the system to avoid downtime and limits from other services,” said Amritanshu Jain, Co-founder and CEO, Simplismart. 

Founded by Amritanshu Jain and Devansh Ghatak in 2022, Simplismart is a cloud-based MLOps workflow orchestration platform that helps organisations fine-tune, deploy, and observe models at scale. 

In the span of two years and with less than $1 million in initial funding, Simplismart claims to have outperformed public benchmarks by developing the world’s fastest inference engine. This engine enables organisations to execute machine learning models at speed, enhancing performance while reducing costs. 

“As GenAI undergoes its Cambrian explosion moment, developers are starting to realise that customising & deploying open-source models on their infrastructure carries significant merit; it unlocks control over performance, costs, customizability over proprietary data, flexibility in the backend stack, and high levels of privacy/security. Not only did Simplismart identify this opportunity early, but with a small team, they have already begun serving some of India’s fastest-growing AI-powered companies in production,” said Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel. 

For instance, its software-based optimisations allow Google‘s AI model Llama3.1 (8B) to operate at a rate of over 440 tokens per second. 

Unlike many competitors who prioritise hardware enhancements or cloud solutions, Simplismart has achieved this improvement through a MLOps platform designed specifically for on-premises enterprise environments and agnostic towards choice of model and cloud platform.