For the startup community, the quick adoption of technology by customers and businesses has brought both opportunities and difficulties. Startups have a greater potential to disrupt sectors and grow swiftly, but they must also contend with heightened competition and a constant need for innovation. In general, technological adoption has had a revolutionary effect on startups, reshaping the entrepreneurial scene and opening up fresh opportunities for development and innovation.
In a recent interaction with Express Computer, Mayank Jain, CEO, New Auto, CarDekho, highlighted the impact of rapid technological change on the startup community and ongoing ecosystem challenges.
“To all the startups out there, I would say to pay attention to the fundamentals. Funding will come, but even if it doesn’t, and even if your fundamentals are sound, keep working hard because the person who hustles the hardest is most likely to succeed and survive,” advised Mayank. He also mentioned how CarDekho has always made using cutting-edge technology, including AI and ML capabilities, a primary priority. In terms of the FinTech, financial, and insurance industries, Mayank predicted that “with the introduction of 5G, many more consumers will start to go online.”
In his final remarks, Mayank covered CarDekho’s recent fundraising, future growth objectives, and key emphasis areas.
What do you think about how quickly consumers and businesses are embracing technology? What effect has the change had on the startup community?
India’s economy is expanding quickly, so you can tell that now is truly its time. We have one of the world’s fastest-expanding economies. In the upcoming ten years, the GDP per capita is predicted to nearly double.
India has traditionally been a strong, enterprising society, and it produces some of the most engineers annually. As a result of the fact that everything is starting to come together, India is experiencing a boom in consumption across the consumer, business, enterprise, and government markets. I firmly anticipate that both this consumption and the startup ecosystem will continue to grow.
Are there any particular challenges the startup ecosystem is now facing? What suggestions do you have to get past such obstacles?
There are certain challenges that are primarily related to funding. However, based on our experience, we can say that excellent startups that have sound unit economics, have sorted out product-market fit, and have a strong team continue to receive funding.
To all the startups out there, I would say to pay attention to the fundamentals. Funding will come, but even if it doesn’t, and even if your fundamentals are sound, keep working hard because the person who hustles the hardest is most likely to succeed and survive.
In addition to the many other emerging technologies, the customer experience will be greatly impacted by AI, ML, big data, and analytics. Right now, every organisation’s major goal is to give customers a positive experience. How are you utilising these technologies to ensure that your clients have a good experience?
Utilising all of these technologies, as well as AI and ML tools, has always been a CarDekho priority. Whether it was the car-buying trip, the InsuranceDekho journey for insurance, or the Rupyy journey for lending, we were leveraging it not simply to offer a terrific client experience across all of our platforms.
We’ve also been at the forefront of developing chatbots that enable local OEMs and dealerships to offer a seamless experience via websites that have chat bots, similar to WhatsApp. Now that NLP and generative AI has advanced, those chatbots are just growing better and better.
We’ll keep using these technologies to help our partners and customers.
With the advent of 5G, what sort of influence do you anticipate it will have on your industry?
Customers will have even better service thanks to 5G technology. A sizable portion of the market is already online in the auto sector, but with the introduction of 5G, I predict that many more consumers will start to go online in the FinTech, lending, and insurance sectors. And finally, I believe that some virtual reality technologies will gain more traction. People will be able to see and hear automobiles and bikes from the comfort of their own homes, which will improve their decision-making when it comes to purchasing them.
What are the top focus points or priorities for the following two years?
Our most important priority is to keep executing across all of our core companies and critical businesses in order to expand even further. In India now, there are only roughly 26 vehicles per 1,000 people. The car sector offers tremendous opportunity.
Likewise, when it comes to lending, our platform currently accounts for around 12% of all auto loans. We see a tremendous opportunity to grow even quicker in the insurance industry, where the space for expansion is once more very, extremely huge. We are currently very focused on execution.
Are there currently any intentions to expand CarDekho outside of India?
Yes. We already rank among Southeast Asia’s biggest providers of automotive technology. We are the top company in Indonesia, and we are growing in other Southeast Asian nations including Malaysia and the Philippines. We intend to launch operations in Thailand very soon as well. Therefore, we are expanding into regions like Southeast Asia with the same companies that we operate currently in India. We may offer up a few additional geographic areas in the near future.
What recent funding have you received and how do you intend to use it to advance technology or talent?
We recently raised funds for our InsuranceDekho business. Today, as a group, we are sufficiently capitalised to fund our long-term aspirations and ambitions. We are looking to raise some capital for our Southeast Asia business as well.
Yes, in parts of our subsidiaries, the businesses are focusing on raising some funds for those businesses. We continue to be well capitalised as a group, and we feel that our brand, technology, and talent inspire us to increase our investments in each of these fields.