Flipkart doubling down on its tech presence in Israel

BENGALURU: Flipkart, India’s biggest ecommerce company, is doubling down on its technology base in Israel six months after acquiring analytics startup Upstream Commerce, said two people aware of the development.

The company is putting in place a management team and setting up an R&D centre focussing on cyber security, cloud computing and data protection while actively scouting for acquisitions in the country.

“While the size of the team itself is small, Israel is a market Flipkart wants to actively pursue for AI, computer vision and security tech,” said a person aware of the company’s plans. The initiative is led by Flipkart’s senior vice-president of engineering Jeyandran Venugopal.

Flipkart’s interest in Israel mirrors that of global technology companies including Google, Facebook, Salesforce and Apple, which set up offices in Israel in a bid to tap the country’s thriving talent.

Flipkart’s parent Walmart has also been actively looking at the Israel market for potential investments. Reports indicate that Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and senior company representatives met Israeli government officials last week and visited local hi-tech startup companies. Last month, Walmart bought Aspectiva, a Tel Aviv-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to analyse and process data from consumer product interests into personalised recommendations for purchasers. The retail giant also has a strategic investment in Team8, an Israeli cyber security startup incubator.

Several of India’s top startups including ride-hailing platform Ola and digital wallet company Paytm have set up technology teams overseas. While Ola is said to have a presence in San Francisco, Paytm set up Paytm Labs in Canada.

Flipkart had also set up an office in Palo Alto, California, to function as an R&D lab working on solutions using AI and machine learning as it looked to attract top Silicon Valley talent from Google, Facebook and eBay.

Flipkart declined to comment on the specifics of its plans. “Our team in Israel is highly talented and we are looking forward to making Israel one of our excellence centres to do cutting-edge data science work,” a spokesperson said. Flipkart acquired Upstream Commerce, a cloud-based, automated competitive pricing and product analysis solutions company, in September. CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said the acquisition would help Flipkart establish Israel as an overseas innovation centre to support ecommerce in India.