Amazon announces $250 million fund for small and medium businesses

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New Delhi: E-commerce giant Amazon on Thursday announced a $250 million (around Rs 1,873 crore) fund that will focus on digitising small and medium businesses, and drive innovation in the areas of agri-tech and health-tech.

“Small and medium-sized businesses are often the engine and the lifeblood of economies and I think it’s true in India as well. And we are very passionate about trying to enable acceleration of SMBs in fueling innovation and the economy in India and so building on what we did last year, I’m excited to announce a brand new $250 million Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund,” Amazon Web Services CEO Andrew Jassy CEO said.

Under this, Amazon intends to help inspire more SMBs to be able to build brand new businesses, Jassy, who will take over as Amazon Inc CEO later this year, said during the second Amazon Smbhav event.

Amazon India Global SVP and Country Head India Amit Agarwal said the fund is targeted at empowering the best ideas, and attracting visionary entrepreneurs.

“The fund is going to focus on three key priorities – SME digitisation, agri-tech innovations to empower farmer productivity and reach, and health-tech to provide universal and quality health care,” he added.