Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce platform, said it has raised $210 million (Rs 1,250 crore) from a consortium of investors led by DST Global – one of the leading global investment groups focused on Internet. Existing investors Tiger Global, Naspers, and Iconiq Capital also participated in the financing round, it said.
The fund raising comes days after Flipkart acquired Myntra.com, a competing website. Flipkart is one of India’s pioneers in the e-commerce space. The company had initially tried an Amazon-like stock-cum-sell model, but was forced to stop stocking items by the government of India as the company had foreign investors.
The government is likely to allow foreign investors to own e-commerce websites soon, at which point Flipkart, and other competitors like Snapdeal and Amazon, are likely to start selling their own items as well. Currently, stocking and procurement is outsourced to other, Indian-owned companies.
Flipkart is estimated to be worth about Rs 10,000-12,000 crore, and 18 million registered users and 3.5 million visits per day. It claims to make 5 million shipments per month and has around 3,000 selling partners. It has around 10,000 employees.
“With the addition of DST Global, we have further strengthened our investor base that consists of world-class investors. We are excited to be a part of the DST portfolio featuring companies that are leading social and ecommerce innovators. Led by a visionary like Yuri Milner, DST brings a global perspective into each of their Internet investments along with a unique understanding of the businesses they invest in and we look forward to working with their team,” said Sachin Bansal, co-founder and CEO, Flipkart.
Binny Bansal, co-founder and COO said the company has met its target of achieving gross merchandise volume of $1 billion per year a year before target. “The funding further strengthens our capabilities to deliver on our next stage of growth.”
Yuri Milner, founder of DST Global said: “Flipkart is one of the fastest growing internet companies globally led by visionary founders. It is well placed to capitalize on the significant opportunity in the fast growing Indian ecommerce market.”
Flipkart’s other investors include Accel Partners, Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina and Vulcan Capital.