On Startup Street’s ‘What’s Brewing”. SoftBank’s country head Manoj Kohli in a conversation with CNBC-TV18’s Timsy Jaipuria on Wednesday said they are committed to invest $2 billion in the next 2 years into India and its focus will remain on consumer internet and artificial intelligence (AI)-led companies and startups.

Kohli further added that India needs much more foreign direct investments (FDIs) to augment growth rates to 7-8 percent.

Also on ‘What’s Brewing’, Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma says that the company will touch profitability in 12-18 months and that they are not in a fundraising mode with enough money in the bank for the next three-four years.

The company has added new products to its suite with an all-in-one POS device and business payments for merchants.

In a conversation with CNBC-TV18’s Mugdha Variyar, Sharma said these products will help the company add 10 million merchants this year.

At the same event, Nandan Nilekani former, UIDAI chairman, said startups need to become profitable. He also added that payment companies need to make money from other services as merchant discount rate (MDR) moves to zero.

Instamojo acquired GetMeAAhop, a Times Internet-owned SAAS platform for MSMEs, to build an online presence. The deal was an all-stock deal for $5 million. Instamojo has now added Times Internet limited as an investor. CNBC-TV18’s Mugdha Variyar spoke to Sampad Swain, CEO of Instamojo and discussed about the acquisition.

On ‘What’s Brewing’, the e-health market in India is estimated to be at over a USD 1 billion by 2020, according to a new report by Redseer.

The report also suggests e-health market in India is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 68 percent by 2025.

In 2019, the total investments in e-health sector almost tripled to $450 million. Currently, over 4 million households use e-health platforms and the estimated addressable market stands at around 60 million households.

Nearly 80 percent of the market is driven by vertical players focused on different categories of e-health such as e-pharmacy, e-consultation and e-diagnostics. Top companies in the e-health space include integrated services players such as Medlife, 1mg and standalone players such as Apollo Pharmacy and Medplus.

Out of all the e-health categories, e-diagnostics has the highest stake rate followed by e-pharma prescriptions and e-consultation services. The report has also made observations on certain regulations. They say that the Madras High Court's stay on selling of medicines online by players without a license was perceived to be a positive in the e-health sector as it eradicated illegitimate players.

E-health platforms also welcomed the recent legislation prohibiting data storage on international servers as it enhanced data safety of their consumers. CNBC-TV18’s Mugdha Variyar caught up with CEO of Medlife Ananth Narayana and CEO of 1mg Prashant Tandon to discuss the details of the report and plans, going ahead.

First Published:Feb 5, 2020 9:10 PM IST