The Silicon Review ^Asia

India, with a massive population of over 1.3 billion people, is a hotly contested battleground for the retail industry as well as the e-commerce sector. Numerous companies, local and international have been struggling to capture a dominant share of this lucrative market. In an effort to get a larger piece of the retail pie, Reliance Industries, India’s largest corporation which operates the nation’s biggest retail chain, has just acquired a stake in Fynd, a startup whose platform connects online stores and consumers with brick and mortar retailers.

Fynd, which has been backed by Google in its initial stage has enjoyed a speedy growth and Reliance’s investment, which was about Rs.295 crore (approximately $42 million) would only serve to enhance the platform’s market penetration.

There are over 600 brands currently offered on Fynd’s platform and those include international as well as Indian regional brands. With this investment, Reliance is now the largest shareholder in Fynd. The startup would use the capital to expand and add additional features that would help retailers to post their inventories online sooner.

Inspite of billions of dollars poured into the Indian e-commerce sector by the likes of Amazon and Flipkart, e-commerce makes up a very small single digit percentage of the retail sector in India, which is projected to grow to an astounding $1.2 trillion in the next couple of years.