Dream11’s Harsh Jain Takes The Reins As IAMAI Chairperson, Big Tech Out From The Governing Council

Dream11 founder and CEO Harsh Jain has been elected as the new chairperson of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

While Indian startups have been raging a war against big tech influence in the industry body, the new 24-member governing council of IAMAI will not have any representation from the big tech firms.

The development comes almost a week after, IAMAI announced that 83 members of IAMAI were contesting the polls for a 24-member council. According to an Inc42 source, of the total nominees, 65 are Indian startups while the rest comprises big tech players and other MNCs.

It is to be noted that, Jain replaces Sanjay Gupta, vice president and country manager, Google India as chairperson of IAMAI.

Besides Jain, other newly elected members in the governing council include — Rajesh Magow, cofounder and group CEO of MakeMyTrip has been elected as the vice chairperson; Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman of Times Internet as the treasurer and Subho Ray will serve as president ex-officio on the executive council.

“The new 24-member Governing Council and the new Executive Council of the IAMAI will take charge from the present councils at the upcoming annual general meeting,” IAMAI said.

The new governing council also includes founders and top executives of prominent startups such as Razorpay, Nazara Technologies, Indifi, Paytm as members.

Other members in the new governing council include:

• Ajay Kaushal, founder, Billdesk
• Alok Mittal, cofounder and CEO, Indifi
• Aloke Bajpai, cofoundcer and group CEO, Ixigo
• Anant Goenka,  executive director, Indian Express
• Anupam Mittal, founder and CEO, People Interactive
• Ashish Kashyap, founder and CEO, IndMoney
• Chintan Thakkar, CFO, Info Edge
• Dinesh Agarwal, founder and CEO, IndiaMart
• Harshil Mathur, cofounder and CEO, Razorpay 
• J Murugavel, founder and CEO, Matrimony.com
• Jitendra Gupta, founder and CEO, Jupiter
• Miten Sampat, Cred
• Naveen Kukreja, cofounder and CEO, Paisa Bazaar 
• Neeraj Roy, managing director, Hungama
• Nitish Mittersain, CEO and joint MD, Nazara
• Rajendra Nalam, SVP corporate finance, Paytm
• Ritesh Malik, founder, Innov8
• Rohan Verma, CEO and executive director, MapmyIndia
• Sameer Nigam, founder and CEO, PhonePe
• Upasana Taku, cofounder and COO, Mobikwik
• Vishwas Patel, executive director, Infibeam Avenues

IAMAI is the umbrella body for many Indian startups and other big tech players operating in India such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Paytm, Ola, PhonePe, among others.

Amid the ongoing saga of startups versus IAMAI on issues such as Google Play Store billing policies, and digital competition law, the members have been quite vocal about keeping big techs out from the IAMAI governing council to avoid conflict of interest.

This came after IAMAI’s submitted its final arguments on Digital Competition Law (CDCL) which triggered the battle within the industry body. The IAMAI had opposed the need for ex-ante regulations. It argued that such measures could limit growth in relevant markets, impacting the digital economy as a whole.

Speaking with Inc42, requesting anonymity, a startup cofounder had said that the leadership of IAMAI was represented by foreign players and the submissions to CDCL were nothing but masked opinions of the big tech players.

“Less than 10% of IAMAI members are non-Indian MNCs, yet, they occupy 100% of the key positions within the IAMAI. As a result, a lot of startup founders have come together to imbibe one philosophy — Indian interests should be first and foremost,” the cofounder said.

“The views on digital competition law prepared by the IAMAI seem to be favouring big tech companies, and not the interest of startups in India… Some of the startups are planning to meet over the next few days to prepare a communication opposing IAMAI’s views,” another founder had told Inc42.

Fintech giant Paytm also opposed the industry body’s stance opposing ex-ante regulations for digital markets. In a formal note sent to the CDCL, the IAMAI said that Paytm has “divergent views” from those expressed in the industry body’s submission.

Moreover, a group of Indian startups have dragged Google to multiple courts over its user choice billing policy. The Indian startups are of the view that the tech major could allegedly abuse its dominance in the app marketplace model to charge 11-26% commissions from developers.

While Shaadi.com CEO Anupam Mittal called Google the Digital East India Company, Matrimony.com’s Murugavel Janakiraman termed Google a threat to Indian startups.