Bengaluru, Aug 9 (IANS); Amazon and Catamaran have decided not to renew their joint venture, Prione Business Services Pvt Ltd beyond May 19, 2022.

The joint venture has been running successfully for the past seven years and is coming up for renewal on May 19, 2022.

"The two partners today announced they have mutually decided to not continue their joint venture beyond the end of its current term," said a joint statement.

The joint venture has enabled over 3,00,000 sellers and entrepreneurs to go online and enabled 4 million merchants with digital payment capabilities, providing these SMBs and merchants access to millions of customers across the country.

When Prione was formed in 2014, e-commerce was still in a nascent stage in India. The small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India were new to digital and needed support, training and tools to go online. The JV's vision was to enable Indian SMBs to succeed in e-commerce and benefit from the digital opportunity. In the last 7 years, the JV has made tremendous strides in this direction, leveraging Catamaran's India insights and Amazon's technology expertise, the statement said.

Cataraman President M.D. Ranganath said: "We are happy that Prione has leveraged global best practices for e-commerce in India, created jobs, and provided millions of Indian customers access to a wide selection of products from across the country by leveraging technology. As our JV with Amazon reaches the end of its tenure, I reflect on this successful partnership that introduced the power of digitization and empowered hundreds of thousands of SMBs across big and small towns. We would like to thank Amazon for the partnership that leaves behind a strong legacy of shaping e-commerce in India."

Amazon India Global Senior VP and Country Head Amit Agarwal said: "Amazon and Catamaran entered into a JV in the early days of e-commerce in India with a shared vision of transforming hundreds of thousands of small businesses in a fast-changing digital world, by providing online capabilities enabling them to access customers both in India and globally. We are humbled by how the JV exceeded its vision, helping online commerce evolve through the unrelenting efforts of hundreds of its employees, positively impacting over 4.3 million small businesses, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, and contributing to India's digital economy."

In 2018, the government had revised norms, asking marketplaces to ensure that they will not sell the products of their group companies on their platforms.

Following the directive, Amazon revamped the company's structure in India and lowered its stake to 24 per cent from 49 per cent.

The N.R. Narayana Murthy-backed Catamaran Ventures, on the other hand, raised its stake to 76 per cent from 51 per cent earlier.