Techcircle Startup Walkabout Pit Stop II – Micromax Informatics, Gurgaon

After braving Delhi rain and negotiating traffic snarls, we reached the nerve centre of the world's tenth largest smartphone vendor- Micromax Infomatics.

Kumar Shah, Head of M&A at Micromax, welcomed the participants and asked them to introduce their ventures to the Micromax team.

Soon, Shah got onto the projector to chronicle Micromax's transition to a mobile manufacturer. Micromax, which started as an IT software company a decade and a half ago, entered the mobile handset business in 2008. It has surpassed Samsung to become the largest mobile handset seller in the country.

Micromax, which is credited for bringing smartphones at low and affordable prices, has also ventured into LED TVs and tablets.

Shah spoke about how the company offloaded the first set of inventory in 10 days.

He also talked about the different verticals that Micromax is targeting and how the company is trying to integrate different services with its mobiles.

"DNA of this company needs time to develop into a software company," he said.

In May, Micromax announced that it will be making investments of $0.5-20 million in over 20 startups over 12 months.

In line with this strategy, Micromax has set up an M&A team which has been actively sourcing and working with startups across Silicon Valley, Europe, Israel and India. Focusing on the services part of the business, Shah said: "We are trying to build on devices and as to what more we can do over and above this."

After the presentation, participants asked questions on how devices can be integrated with service apps. There were also questions on inventory manufacturing and hardware designs.