Appario Rental, a seller entity recently formed under a joint venture between Amazon and Patni group, has received a fresh capital infusion of Rs 100 crore, as per the latest filings of the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

Amazon had formed a joint venture with the Patni Group in September 2017 in order to strengthen its customer service base in India. The step aimed to cater to the growing local language customers. The Patni Group currently holds 51 per cent of the joint venture and helped Amazon set up Frontizo Business under the joint venture. Appario Retail is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Frontizo Business. Prior to this investment, the company had received approximately Rs 40 crore as capital, thereby putting the company’s total paid up capital at Rs 140 crore.

Three years ago, Amazon had entered into a similar joint venture with Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy’s family office, Catamaran Ventures, to form CloudTail India. Since then, the entity has emerged as the largest seller on Amazon India. However, the e-commerce giant is attempting to reduce its dependence on CloudTail ever since the government unveiled regulations, which stated that single sellers should not clock more than 25 per cent of overall sales of an e-commerce player.

In the light of these regulations, it seem as though Amazon has similar plans with Appario. When the joint venture was being set up, the partners had stated that the core aim of Frontizo Business was to build a multi-channel customer support service while confirming that Appario would become a seller on the platform.

Amazon has also branched out into working with companies other than CloudTail. A few of them include GreenMobiles, Amazing Buy, Olympia Industries, UBSPD, and u-Read Shop, all of whom have become significant sellers on Amazon India. The larger sellers are a part of the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) programme, which was initiated to ensure adequate inventory and quicker shipping, once an order has been placed on Amazon.

(Picture courtesy : Fortune.com)