iWorld
Bharat Ke Super Founders crosses Rs 100 crore mark
Amazon MX Player’s startup show races past Rs 100 crore in funding
MUMBAI: Amazon MX Player’s entrepreneurial reality series Bharat Ke Super Founders has powered past the Rs 100 crore investment mark early in its season, turning televised pitches into real capital and credible business momentum.
Streaming free across India, the show has quickly evolved from a reality format into a serious investment platform. Each episode brings founders face to face with seasoned investors for searching, unscripted conversations that cut beyond polished pitch decks. The focus is on vision, scalability and long-term value, mirroring how real fundraising plays out in boardrooms rather than on stage.
The results have been tangible. The season’s highest funding so far, Rs 20.25 crore, went to ReGrip, signalling the scale of bets being placed. Innovation has arrived in many forms, from ZozoConnect, an NFC-based networking solution pitched by 11-year-old Athvik Amith Kumar that secured an Rs 11 lakh grant and mentorship, to MH19 Chips Vala, founded by brothers Durgesh and Sai Shimpi, whose journey from Jalgaon struck a chord with viewers and investors alike.
The show has also spotlighted deep-tech ambition. Cosmoserve, a space-tech venture founded by former Isro scientist Chiranjeevi, secured Rs 5.5 crore in funding. Go Swasthya received Rs 2 crore from Nitish Mittersain, while Organiko rallied multiple investors and the Market behind its growth vision.
Amazon MX Player director and head of content Amogh Dusad, said the milestone reflects the platform’s commitment to backing authentic ambition across India. He noted that making the show freely accessible has helped entrepreneurial stories from beyond the metros reach a wider audience, strengthening both engagement and aspiration.
Actor and entrepreneur Suniel Shetty, who mentors and hosts the series, emphasised that the show is built on decisive funding and long-term mentorship rather than symbolic handshakes. He said honouring commitments and standing by founders is what turns ambition into scale.
At its core, Bharat Ke Super Founders brings together influential business leaders including A. Velumani, Nitish Mittersain and Shanti Mohan, among others. With a live market powered by Recur, founders can secure both debt and equity, with every deal backed by real money rather than reality show theatrics.
New episodes drop every Friday and Saturday, streaming free on Amazon MX Player across the MX Player app, the Amazon shopping app, Prime Video, Fire TV and Airtel Xtreme.
For a show built on belief, Bharat Ke Super Founders is proving that when ambition meets capital, prime time can translate into prime growth.
iWorld
WhatsApp emerges as key commerce channel in India: Meta report
Whitepaper shows 77 per cent of purchases influenced by social media and shoppers spend 2.5 times more across channels
MUMBAI: If shopping once meant a stroll down the high street, today it begins with a scroll on a smartphone. India’s retail journey is being rewritten in real time, as consumers glide between Instagram Reels, WhatsApp chats and physical stores with barely a pause for thought. A new whitepaper by Meta in collaboration with the Retailers Association of India argues that this shift is not cosmetic but structural, powered by artificial intelligence, short form video, creators and conversational commerce.
The numbers underline the scale of the change.
Social media now influences 77 per cent of retail purchase decisions in India, with Meta’s platforms accounting for 96 per cent of social driven discovery. Discovery itself is increasingly passive and visual rather than deliberate and search led. As much as 97 per cent of consumers watch short form video daily, and 60 per cent of time spent on Facebook and Instagram is devoted to video content.
In other words, the shop window has moved to the feed.
The report highlights the growing dominance of the omnichannel shopper, a consumer who researches and buys fluidly across online and offline environments. More than 50 per cent of retail consumers research products online before purchasing in store. Equally, over 50 per cent browse in store before completing their purchase online.
This blended behaviour is lucrative. Shoppers who buy across channels spend 2.5 times more than single channel shoppers. When customers engage across multiple touchpoints, spending rises by as much as 73 per cent. For retailers, unified commerce is no longer a strategy slide. It is a revenue imperative.
Meta India director of E commerce and retail Meghna Apparao, urged brands to focus on three pillars: Reels and creators for authentic storytelling, omnichannel performance marketing to connect platforms, and WhatsApp as a personalised commerce channel. Hitesh Bhatt of RAI noted that the challenge is no longer adopting digital tools but integrating them to deliver measurable outcomes.
Artificial intelligence sits at the heart of this integration. Indian retailers using Meta’s omnichannel optimisation have recorded more than fourfold improvements in omnichannel return on ad spend. Businesses that integrated in store sales data through Meta’s Conversions API have reported Roas uplift ranging from 2 times to 5 times or more, alongside incremental sales growth of up to 9 times depending on category and market.
Integrated data strategies have also delivered revenue growth of up to 15 per cent, suggesting that when digital signals are tied to offline outcomes, marketing efficiency sharpens considerably.
Retailers are already putting this into practice. Reliance Digital has leaned into a Reels first strategy, working with regional creators to drive engagement and measurable business impact. Croma says Meta’s AI powered tools have enabled it to integrate offline data and activate performance marketing across touchpoints, strengthening both footfall and revenue across online and physical stores.
Trust is increasingly creator led. The report finds that 71 per cent of consumers make a purchase within a couple of days of seeing creator content on Meta’s technologies. Campaigns that leverage reels and creators have delivered 71 per cent higher brand intent lift and 19 per cent lower acquisition costs.
Micro and nano creators, in particular, are accelerating purchase decisions by embedding products into relatable, local narratives. Influence is no longer confined to celebrity endorsements. It is distributed, conversational and continuous.
If Instagram and Facebook drive discovery, WhatsApp is emerging as the conversion engine. According to the report, 72 per cent of product discovery now happens on WhatsApp. Retailers using business messaging and click to WhatsApp campaigns are seeing a 61 per cent average improvement in return on ad spend, a 62 per cent increase in leads and 22 per cent higher order values.
The implication is clear. Commerce is shifting from clicks to conversations. Discovery, purchase and post purchase support increasingly unfold within a single chat thread.
The whitepaper argues that omnichannel maturity will define competitiveness in Indian retail. Consumers no longer toggle between online and offline modes. They operate across both simultaneously, often within the same buying journey.
For brands, the task is no longer about being present on digital platforms. It is about stitching together discovery, data, conversation and store experience into a unified loop that can be measured in footfall, revenue and repeat purchase.
As India’s shoppers continue to scroll before they stroll, the retailers who align AI, creators and messaging into one seamless experience may find that the path to growth is less about adding new channels and more about connecting the ones they already have.
