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Sreeraman M G pursued his dream of becoming a startup entrepreneur even by dropping out of the much sought-after IIT Bombay

- Deepu Aby Varghese

The most important ingredients of a potentially successful startup nowadays, according to regular investors, are a skilled and motivated team, and out-of-the-box ideas. However, Sreeraman M G, the cofounder of Fynd in which Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Limited (RIIHL) recently invested a whopping Rs. 295 crore, adds another one to the list, timing. A slightly late or early entry into the market may also botch up the chances of realizing one’s goals, he says.

Sreeraman, having completed his schooling from Christ Nagar Central School in Thiruvananthapuram and BTech from TKM Engineering College in Kollam, joined IIT Bombay to pursue his post-graduation in 2012. But the engineer along with Farooq Adam and Harsh Shah, who he met through the IIT network, cofounded Shopsense Retail Technologies in the same year, discontinuing his PG programme.

Fynd launched in 2015, provides technology and solutions to merchants to manage sale of goods through the e-commerce platforms of the company. Previously, the company has also been successful in raising more than $7 million from Google, Kae Capital, IIFL, Singularity Ventures, and GrowX.

According to RIIHL, they would further make an investment of Rs.100 crore in the company by December 2021, taking the total investment in Fynd to about 87.6 percent of its equity shares.

In the initial phase, Shopsense Retail Technologies offered retail fashion brands to help increase customer experience of offline stores. However, Sreeraman and team decided to move to other segments as well considering the lack of viability of the products they offered through the platform.