It was a demo that led Sanjeev Bikhchandani, the founder of online classifieds giant Info Edge, to buy into the vision of Policybazaar. The year was 2008. At the time, insurance policy comparison in India was a fledgeling concept, and Yashish Dahiya, Policybazaar’s founder, was looking for someone to back his insurance comparison platform. At a meeting with the Info Edge founder, he made a bold claim. Dahiya, despite zero knowledge of Bikhchandani’s insurance purchases, told him that he was paying 60% too much for his car insurance. Sure enough, he proved this claim using his policy comparison platform.
The juggler
It’s an internet platform. It’s a holding company. It’s a VC fund. It’s Info Edge!
It’s also a stock market darling, and the only non-VC firm with two unicorn investments. But these mask deeper problems
Info Edge has relied on smart investments to create value for its shareholders. Its early investments in Zomato and Policybazaar paid off tremendously
However, it can no longer rely heavily on this approach as the VC/PE space is a lot more crowded than it once was
Instead, Info Edge must look at its core businesses—Naukri.com in particular—as it looks to maintain its status as the market’s darling
But despite being India’s largest jobs platform, Naukri faces an uphill struggle to maintain its market leader position
