Early-stage VC fund Antler India launches ONDC-focused platform for founders with FIDE, Nandan Nilekani

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Antler India on Wednesday announced a platform to support and fund founders working with the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). The platform, touted as the country’s first ONDC platform, was launched in partnership with ONDC, the Foundation for Interoperability in Digital Economy (FIDE), and Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani.

The platform is offering pre-seed capital of $300,000 to “ready-teams with an idea” that are building on the ONDC protocol, with an additional investment of up to $200,000 from “key partners”, such as founders in the Antler network. “Only 6% of MSMEs are active sellers on digital platforms.

With ONDC, we believe this has the potential to grow to 30-40% over the next decade… we are excited to see founders build at population scale in themes like complex commerce, vernacular commerce, and flow-based lending, to name a few,” said Nitin Sharma, partner at Antler India. The platform is also offering “pre-team” and “pre-idea” founders the opportunity to work with operators and network participants such as Namma Yatri, Plotch.ai, SellerApp, Magicpin etc, Antler said in a statement.

A number of aspiring founders could also be moved to Antler’s cohort-based programme, called Antler India Residency. “We are going to democratise ecommerce in India… Everyone, every supplier, including kirana stores, grocery retailers, electronics retailers, small vendors, and restaurants should participate in the digital marketplace on an open platform,” said Nilekani.

Two weeks earlier, Plotch.ai, a firm that helps build tech infrastructure for other enterprises to join ONDC, raised pre-seed funding in a round led by Antler India. “We have been getting interest for over a year from venture capital firms