MC Tech3 | The Kalyan Krishnamurthy interview; Funding surge for early-stage startups; and more

Breaking: RBI deals a body blow to Paytm 

• The central bank has barred Paytm Payments Bank from accepting fresh deposits, credit transactions, or top-ups after February 29, 2024 (effectively bringing all operations of the payments bank to a halt).

One quick thing: Import duty on mobile phone parts reduced to 10% 

In today’s newsletter: 

• Flipkart chief on governance, payments and more

• Funding surge for early-stage startups

• Inside Google's plans to speed up execution

Flipkart chief on governance, payments and more

For men may come and men may go, but I go on forever.

Perhaps, nothing describes Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy better than this. 

Krishnamurthy has been the one constant amid wider changes, sometimes turbulent, at Flipkart in the last decade:

• The departure of its storied founders Sachin and Binny Bansal

• Walmart acquiring a majority stake 
• The exit of early investors such as Accel and Tiger Global

‘Best job in the world’

At the headquarters of Flipkart in Bengaluru, where we met one of India's most influential internet bosses, Krishnamurthy tells us he has the best job in the world.

"What job can be better than this? Influencing the quality of life of hundreds of millions of users, right?" he said.

On governance

At a time when the startup ecosystem is grappling with frauds and compliance lapses, the Flipkart boss said that the solution is to have more independent directors on company boards.

• Shareholders and management are too closely involved with the company for them to raise tough questions, according to him.

Fork in the road: Until recently, the easy option for growth involved acquiring more new users by attracting them with freebies and discounts. However, times have changed. 

Flipkart has now shifted its focus to encouraging existing users to make more frequent purchases for further growth.

“We are not focused on expanding that 500-600 million user base to 800 million,” Krishnamurthy said.

Its new initiatives in areas like travel, health and financial services are geared in that direction.

Clear goals

As Flipkart prepares to launch its payment product within a month, the CEO said he has no ambitions to become a large fintech company.

• The aim is to increase frequency of usage and make some extra money while doing so. 

 Read the full interview 

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