The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), set up to democratise e-commerce and make digital commerce available to smaller players, on Thursday announced the onboarding of 125 ecosystem stakeholders, including startups and some of the best known unicorns, on its network.
The unicorns that have signed Letter of Intent (LoI) to partner with ONDC include likes of Zerodha, EaseMyTrip, Pristyn Care, Cars24, Physics Wallah, PolicyBazaar, OfBusiness, Winzo, Livspace and GlobalBees.
“This collaboration is meant to ensure that startups are also able to access the network to get access to the market… the idea is to get the better wider choice and value to the consumers,” secretary in the Department of Industry and Internal Trade, Rajesh Kumar Singh said.
The LoI was signed at the ONDC Startup Mahotsav, held on Thursday, which saw the participation of 5,000 startups in hybrid mode. The representatives of unicorns said by collaborating with ONDC they are seeking to get to the smaller towns which are still underserved by e-commerce.
ONDC can also open doors for partnerships of local businesses in these underserved towns with startups and unicorns getting them more opportunities, they said.
“This collaboration is meant to ensure that startups are also able to access the network to get access to the market. The idea is to get a wider choice and value to the consumers and access to all kinds of sellers,” Singh said.
On concerns that the bigger startups might overshadow smaller players on ONDC, the secretary said, “ We hope that it will increasingly get traction for all types of players. The intent is noble, let us see how it works and actually we can crack the issues in terms of market concentration,” he said.
ONDC, which was launched in 2021, has gained a lot of traction in the last two years. More than 500,000 sellers have been onboarded on the platform, of which more than 70% are small or medium sized sellers. In April 2024, ONDC facilitated around 7.22 million transactions.
The onboarding of startups brings together two initiatives of the government — ONDC and Startup India Initiative.
The government launched the Startup India initiative in 2016 to support entrepreneurs and build a robust startup ecosystem in the country. From around 300 startups in 2016, today India is amongst the leading startup hubs with more than 130,000 DPIIT recognised startups. These are operating in more than 55 sectors and have created more than 130,000 direct jobs in the country.