Meet the Indian entrepreneurs eyeing strong international expansion and other stop SMB stories of the week

Expansion is a part of scaling up a business, but taking it beyond the boundaries of your country involves a lot of effort and perseverance. This week, SMBStory spoke to a few entrepreneurs who are eyeing global expansion. 

Dhaval Ajmera - Ajmera Realty

What lies behind the enduring legacy of family businesses? Besides family values and trust, there is also the not-so-small matter of understanding each generation’s unique point of view. 

In a one-of-a-kind conversation with SMBStory, Dhaval Ajmera, second-generation entrepreneur and Director of Ajmera Group of Companies, sheds light on how a small family business grew to become a name to reckon with in the real estate sector, and gives a glimpse into its five-decade-old story, and how it has spread its wings to the UK and Bahrain.

Dhaval narrates the story of how his uncle, Chhotalal S Ajmera (also known as Chhotubhai), started out as an ordinary boy who came to Mumbai from Vasavada, a small village in Gujarat, to set up one of India’s most renowned real estate companies, the NSE-listed Ajmera Group.

Chhotubhai wanted to create affordable houses for the middle-class and started by building a township comprising 600 buildings, with 16,000 flats at Mira Road, Mumbai, which Dhaval claims is “Asia’s first-ever township of this number”. 

“His approach to housing did not end with building apartment blocks but extended to creating a liveable environment and community with all the necessary amenities,” Dhaval says.

Dhaval claims that Ajmera Group of Companies has delivered 45,000 apartments covering 30 million sq ft of space in India to date. In FY21, Ajmera Realty and Infra clocked sales of Rs 617 crore, while the group clocked sales of Rs 900 crore (which includes Rs 617 crore of Ajmera Realty and Infra) in the real estate sector.

In the next 15 months, Ajmera Realty and Infra has a pipeline of seven new launches spread across 3.2 million sq ft to be launched at Wadala, Ghatkopar, Juhu, Pune, and Central Mumbai in Maharashtra, with a combined estimated sale value of about Rs 4,400 crore. 

Ajmera’s reach has also spread abroad and the company has set up small residential projects in London.

Read the full story here

Biraja Prasad Rout - Biggies Burger

Fast food restaurant chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Dominos, Dunkin Donuts, etc. — have been ruling the quick service restaurant (QSR) segment in India. However, none of these companies is India-headquartered.

While international giants have made a mark for themselves, Indian counterparts such as Bengaluru-based Biggies Burger are ambitious and aspire to scale as big as these companies.

Founded by Biraja Prasad Rout in 2011 as a weekend hobby, Biggies Burger was started with a small kiosk in Bengaluru’s Electronic City, near the Infosys office.

Biraja says the trend of fast-food chains interested him while he was working at HCL Limited. The lack of local brands compelled him to push this opportunity further.

Today, Biggies Burger has a presence across 71 outlets (47 functioning and 24 under-progress) in 25 cities, except in North India. The founder highlights that Biggies Burger functions as a franchisee model, sans one company-owned outlet in Bengaluru.

This year, Biggies has big plans to expand domestically and internationally. Apart from foraying into Singapore, the brand plans to open 306 outlets by 2024, with the current run-rate of five franchises a month.

Read the full story here

Other top picks of the week:

Winny Patro - Recordent

Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) form the backbone of the Indian economy. However, access to credit and credit financing are some of the major challenges faced by this sector. 

According to rough estimates, 27-29 percent of small and medium business (SMBs) operate without any access to formal credit, which leads to a cycle of credit demand. SMEs, being traditional in nature, find it difficult to deal with these challenges. 

Enter Recordent,  which helps small and medium enterprises manage and monitor their credit risks using data. The Hyderabad-based company was incorporated in 2018 but only started operations in 2021 amid the pandemic. 

It offers four main products – cRediDue, cRediEye, Legal Notice, and E-arbitration. From helping MSMEs generate invoice reconciliation notifications and create customer credit history to sending legal notices, Recordent India offers a host of services. It claims to have generated over 71,000 invoices, and Rs 2.5 crore worth of business credit reports till date.

Read the full story here