Protean Partners with nStore to Digitise Merchants, Businesses and Brands

Protean eGov Technologies Limited (formerly NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited), a market leader in universal, citizen centric and population scale e-governance solutions, today announced a collaboration with nStore Technologies, an integrated digital order-to-deliver platform, to accelerate digital inclusion and digital commerce among retail merchants, businesses and brands.

Under the partnership, the two companies will offer an easy-to-use digital storefront that facilitates digital discovery and commerce for merchants and businesses on the back of the innovative, disruptive and transformative Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) ecosystem. With this, any merchant or business can register their stores and brands online, create and upload catalogues on the open network and get their business online.

Protean aims to roll out this technology as a 'plug-in' in close collaboration with seller platforms, financial institutions and other partners with the ability to onboard last-mile businesses at scale.

Protean eGov Technologies Limited Managing Director and CEO Suresh Sethi said, "We believe that Protean has been at the forefront of enabling the e-governance infrastructure and launching population-scale digital interventions for over two decades and laying a foundation for a Digital India. With a view to support the government's vision to democratise digital commerce, we are launching technology solutions and tools that will enable any business, large or small, to be a part of the ONDC ecosystem quickly and seamlessly. We are extremely proud that our technology innovations over the years have made the lives of millions of citizens convenient by implementation of universal, citizen centric and population scale e-governance solutions. We look forward to play a role in building and scaling new open digital ecosystems as building blocks for India and the rest of the world."

nStore CEO Pradeep Kumar Sampath said, "nStore's genesis was built on the fundamentals of democratizing digital commerce through partnerships with stores and brands across categories. With our solution currently deployed across 20+ cities, we have created a platform and operating model that will help small businesses and brands to get a digital storefront effortlessly and focus more on their core business. We are excited to partner with Protean to take our solution to scale and be one of the pioneers in laying the digital foundation for our country."

About Protean eGov Technologies Limited

Protean eGov Technologies Limited (formerly NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited) is a key IT enabled service provider engaged in conceptualizing, developing and executing nationally critical and population scale greenfield technology solutions. The company has extensively collaborated with the government in creating digital public infrastructure and developing innovative citizen centric e-governance solutions. The company's core strength lies in not just enabling technology, but also providing the necessary interventions for ecosystem creation and adoption of disruptive technologies.

In these two-and-a-half decades, the company has created strong e-governance interventions impacting multiple sectors of the Indian economy and provided various IT-enabled solutions such as modernizing the direct tax infrastructure, providing a tax identity to citizens and corporates (PAN card issuance), strengthening the old-age social security infrastructure (National Pension System (NPS) & Atal Pension Yojna (APY)), promoting financial inclusion by contributing to the India Stack by enrolling citizens for National Identity and enabling the BFSI sector by providing online PAN verification, Aadhaar-based identity authentication and e-Sign services. Over the years, Protean has implemented and managed 18 projects spread across seven ministries and autonomous bodies, ushering a positive change in delivery of public services.

To create a truly inclusive service delivery mechanism, Protean has established a large PAN-India network of centres to provide assisted services to the citizens who are digitally excluded. This Phygital model created by Protean keeps up with the huge and diverse demographic needs of our country.

Visit www.proteantech.in for more information.

About nStore

nStore (www.nstore.in) is a company building SaaS based digital platforms to solve problems for the large number of unorganized retailers and small businesses in India. The platform conceptualized a few years ago enables such business to offer a similar customer experience to that of online eTailers. In addition, the platform offers retailers a range of value added products and services to unlock additional revenue streams.

Disclaimer

Protean eGov Technologies Limited is proposing, subject to receipt of requisite approvals, market conditions and other considerations, to make an initial public offer of its equity shares and has filed a draft red herring prospectus ("DRHP") with Securities and Exchange Board of India ("SEBI). The DRHP is available on the website of the SEBI at www.sebi.gov.in as well as on the websites of the book running lead managers, ICICI Securities Limited, Equirus Capital Private Limited, IIFL Securities Limited and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Private Limited, at www.icicisecurities.com, www.equirus.com, www.iiflcap.com and www.nomuraholdings.com respectively, and the website of BSE Limited at www.bseindia.com. Any potential investor should note that investment in equity shares involves a high degree of risk and for details relating to such risk, see "Risk Factors" of the RHP, when available. Potential investors should not rely on the DRHP for any investment decision.

The Equity Shares offered in the Offer have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") or any other applicable law of the United States and, unless so registered, may not be offered or sold within the United States, except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. Accordingly, the Equity Shares are only being offered and sold (i) within the United States only to persons reasonably believed to be "qualified institutional buyers" (as defined in Rule 144A under the Securities Act, "Rule 144A") in transactions exempt from, or not subject to, registration requirements of the Securities Act, and (ii) outside the United States in offshore transactions in reliance on Regulation S under the Securities Act and pursuant to the applicable laws of the jurisdictions where those offers and sales are made. There will be no public offering of the Equity Shares in the United States.