Assiduus Global Inc. founded in 2018 is an AI-powered cross-border, multi-platform E-commerce accelerator that launches and scales D2C brands across global E-commerce marketplaces. Assiduus Global Inc is Dr Somdutta Singh's--a serial entrepreneur and angel investor's third entrepreneurial venture. The initial investment for the startup came from Dr Singh herself and in 2020 Assiduus raised its first round of investment, Series A from VC Firm – Kratzel Partners LLP and a few notable HNIs.
Assiduus is powered by patent-pending technology that helps brands launch, scale and grow across multiple E-commerce marketplaces and geographies by enabling their digital commerce through the end-to-end supply chain and distribution management.
What made you start up this venture?
It was the year 2016 and Assiduus was already owning and managing several domestic brands in the nutraceutical, health, and personal care verticals on Amazon in the US. We were able to rapidly scale these brands and soon we realized that we could take Assiduus’ strengths, technology, supply chain, logistics, and operations to multiple other brands and advance and expand their businesses across multiple E-commerce marketplaces.
E-commerce is the future and D2C brands are at the helm fuelling this massive growth. With our tech prowess and expertise in supply chain and distribution management, we have been able to help businesses defy the common challenges that brands face such as barriers to entering global marketplaces, frequently changing APIs and a comprehensive lack of business resources and expertise.
We became profitable in 2020.
What do you plan to do with Assiduus? How far have you been able to fulfil that goal?
The company today has grown exponentially to employ a workforce of 100+ employees across the globe. We work across 4 continents, 12+ marketplaces and leverage data and intelligence, and offer brands research-based, actionable insights that drive higher E-comm rankings, ROI and deliver results with credibility and consistency.
What are the challenges D2C brands face in India? How different is this from the challenges European, American D2C brands face?
One of the biggest challenges that brands across the world, irrespective of their country, is not just to build a strong portfolio of innovative products. Challenges arise when those products need to be sold across geographies, marketplaces and different groups of consumers. A key challenge that brands encounter is to sell those products in the right market and cater to the right audiences. Assiduus's operational expertise allows us to understand and identify market demands and empower brands to curate, design and position products to appeal to them.
Brands need insights and intelligence, the right data sets, knowledge of the right markets, awareness of market demands, understanding of consumer affiliations, spending patterns, and repeat purchase rates. One of the elementary principles of selling on marketplaces is segmentation. One product cannot cater to different sections of people across diverse countries. Assiduus is not just a distributor. We have tech integrations with E-commerce marketplaces across the globe and are part of their joint development program that gives brands the added advantage of having a key partner and not just being a one-in-a-million seller on the marketplace.
What are the challenges that big Indian pharma and other companies face vis a vis smaller brands in India?
Some of the key challenges that Indian pharmaceutical brands witness are supply chain disruptions, exclusive workforces and resources to handle each segment of the process, collection and analysis of huge amounts of data, need for agility and transparency in the process and finally, process optimization.
Smaller pharma companies witness further challenges along with the ones mentioned above. Business leaders are constantly seeking to improve their limited processes for maximum efficiency, getting the right personnel and teams on board and finally having the funds and resources for cross-geography expansion, unlike their affluent counterparts.
Which country is most difficult to penetrate vis-a-vis regulations? What is your solution regarding this for Indian brands?
All nations have their own sets of stringent rules and regulations that as an accelerator, we need to decipher, understand and abide by. When it comes to regulations, while the Middle East presents a massive untapped opportunity for E-commerce, it definitely is a tough nut to crack.
Assiduus’s AI tech allows us to analyze data from multiple marketplaces across borders and gives us intelligence into various consumer behaviour and purchase factors. This allows us to smartly map projections and markets for specific products. Some of the largest names in the industry have chosen us as their E-commerce accelerator partner and have witnessed tremendous growth in terms of revenue generation, operational growth, sales, and rank improvement.
What would your advice be for Indian D2C brands before venturing into other geographies?
The only thing they have to do is, take care of developing and expanding their product portfolios. Leave aside all their uncertainties about planning, implementation and execution and let the experts take care of the rest.
What are your future plans for Assiduus?
I would like Assiduus Global to become the most prominent and chosen E-commerce accelerator and partner for D2C brands and companies that are looking to conquer the global E-commerce ecosystem. I have plans to expanding our global presence to reach even more brands around the world.
