Amid the Facebook data breach scandal, which has lead to major privacy concerns and has resulted in many leaving the platform, Mahindra and Mahindra Chairman Anand Mahindra is toying with the idea of an alternative social media platform.
The billionaire businessman took to Twitter to share his thoughts saying, "Beginning to wonder if it's time to consider having our own social networking company that is very widely owned&professionally managed&willingly regulated.Any relevant Indian start-ups out there?If any young teams have such plans I'd like to see if I can assist with seed capital.”
Beginning to wonder if it’s time to consider having our own social networking company that is very widely owned&professionally managed&willingly regulated.Any relevant Indian start-ups out there?If any young teams have such plans I’d like to see if I can assist with seed capital pic.twitter.com/nBSkQk0hCp
— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) March 26, 2018
This comes at a time when Facebook is in the middle of its largest crisis till date. Cambridge Analytica, which collaborated with the election campaign of Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election, used leaked information of over 50 million Facebook users to develop a computer programme to predict the decisions of US voters and influence them.
US Federal Trade commission confirmed on Monday that it was investigating Facebook and said that it "takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook".
In India, Mahindra and Mahindra has been at the forefront when it comes to innovation and working with startups. It is the first auto-maker in the country to manufacture and have running electric vehicles in the market. It is also working with Ford to develop new products and connected car solutions. In fact, Mahindra also recently invested in Self-drive car rental start-up Zoomcar India as part of its $40 million in a Series C funding round.
Its IT services arm Tech Mahindra too, announced towards the end of 2017 that it plans to bring in at least 20-30 startups each year as partners in the areas of networking, communication technology and virtual reality. This is part of its programme TechM Next, where it looks for startups from India, Silicon Valley in the US, UK and Israel that have innovative and disruptive ideas that the company can incorporate in existing business areas.