Indian firms oust Big Tech companies from IAMAI in poll coup

Dream11 cofounder and chief executive Harsh Jain has been elected the chairperson of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), with Makemytrip cofounder and group CEO Rajesh Magow becoming the vice-chairperson, and Times Internet’s Satyan Gajwani elected treasurer, people in the know of the matter said.
Jain, Magow and Gajwani, who have been elected for a term of two years, replace Google India country head and vice president Sanjay Gupta, WhatsApp’s India public policy director Shivnath Thukral, and Razorpay cofounder and CEO Harshil Mathur, respectively.

“I am honoured to be elected as the chairman of IAMAI. I look forward to working with the governing council, IAMAI team and all the members to foster a thriving Indian tech ecosystem that will unlock new opportunities and drive economic growth for India,” Dream11’s Jain said.

The newly elected 24-member governing council comprises PhonePe’s Sameer Nigam, Infibeam Avenues’ Vishwas Patel, Shaadi.com’s Anupam Mittal, IndMoney’s Ashish Kashyap, Ixigo’s Aloke Bajpai, Nazara Technologies’ Nitish Mittersain, Innov8 founder Ritesh Malik, Mobikwik cofounder Upasana Taku, MapmyIndia’s Rohan Verma, and Matrimony.com’s Murugavel Janakiraman. In addition, it has executives from companies such as Billdesk, Indifi, Indian Express, Info Edge, IndiaMart, Cred, Jupiter, Paytm, Hungama, Paisabazaar, and Razorpay.

In a statement confirming the development, IAMAI said, “The new 24-member governing council and the new executive council of the IAMAI will take charge from the present councils at the upcoming annual general meeting”.

An interesting aspect of this year's election is that representatives of MNC companies were not elected to the executive council. Nor did they find a place in the 24-member governing council, whose members are the top 24 candidates in terms of votes.

ET had reported earlier that the elections to the internet industry body, which took place earlier this month, were taking place at a time when Indian startups and internet companies had opposed IAMAI's stand on certain issues, where they alleged it was taking a pro-Big Tech view.

Several Indian internet entrepreneurs had raised issues with IAMAI’s stance on the digital competition law, and even called for a change in the industry body’s leadership.


Also read | Entrepreneurs flag lack of ‘credence’ as IAMAI not representing their interests, favouring Big Tech

Ray did not respond to requests for a comment. In a statement confirming the development, IAMAI said: "The new 24-member governing council and the new executive council of the IAMAI will take charge from the present councils at the upcoming annual general meeting".

IAMAI had said earlier this month that 83 of its members were contesting the elections for the governing council — the subset of which is the executive council. The contestants receiving the highest number of votes get elected chairperson, vice-chairperson and treasurer in the descending order of the votes.

Times Internet, which is an IAMAI member, is part of the Times Group, which publishes ETtech.


The outgoing governing council included members such as Airbnb’s Amanpreet Singh Bajaj, Amazon’s Manish Tiwary, Mastercard’s Vikas Sarogi, Microsoft’s Vinay Kumar, Netflix’s Ambika Khurana, Sequoia Capital’s Shweta Rajpal Kohli. In addition, it had several representatives from Indian companies, including BharatPe’s Shashvat Nakrani, Dailyhunt’s Umang Bedi, InMobi’s Vasuta Agarwal, Paisabazaar’s Naveen Kukreja, and others.

Vocal for local interests

The newly elected governing council of IAMAI is expected to set the industry body’s agenda in line with the interests of domestic internet companies after taking charge at the association’s annual general meeting next month.

The governing council is responsible for setting the strategic direction of the association, while also preparing the annual plan. The four-member executive, meanwhile, is responsible for executing the annual strategy set by the governing council.

“We will meet and decide (the agenda for the governing council). It is by and for Indian startups,” Matrimony.com chief executive Janakiraman said, adding that IAMAI should make efforts for the interests of Indian companies over considering commercial interests of foreign Big Tech platforms.

MapmyIndia’s chief executive and executive director Rohan Verma told ET, “I am very hopeful the outcome of this will be a stronger Indian industry…The governing council’s agenda should be to help India and Indian companies reach their true potential, and achieve their rightful place at the forefront of the world”.

ET had reported on May 13 that the IAMAI had submitted its views to the Committee on Digital Competition Law (CDCL), opposing the prescription of ex-ante regulations for digital companies, saying that ex-ante measures “may limit growth not only of the market in question but the digital economy altogether”. Ex-ante regulations aim to address issues identified beforehand preemptively, by laying out a list of dos and don’ts for stakeholders. The CDCL was constituted by the government on February 6 to draft a competition law for digital platforms.

IAMAI’s views were opposed by Indian internet companies, including Paytm, which had expressed views that were at variance with those of the industry grouping. Reacting to Paytm’s opposition, Sameer Nigam, PhonePe cofounder and CEO, said ex-ante competition regulations were “a bad idea”, predicting that founders “opportunistically backing ex-ante regulations against others today will beg for less” regulation against themselves tomorrow.


“We should first spend time studying whether IAMAI in its current form truly represents the interests of Indian startups and digital companies,” said Anupam Mittal, founder and director of Shaadi.com. “That was the idea when we founded IAMAI and it’s important it orients to that founding principle.”

Members of IAMAI said they felt more reassured that there was Indian representation in the body.

“IAMAI has been a mouthpiece for big tech for long now with little to no representation for domestic startups and their issues,” Snehil Khanor, cofounder and CEO of TrulyMadly.com, said. “It was about time that all IAMAI members also realised this and voted out all the big techs from the governing council and voted in a complete desi governing council which will work for the betterment of the Indian internet and digital ecosystem.”