Flipkart,
India's largest e-tailer, said on Tuesday it raised a fresh round of
funding worth $1 billion as it tries to aggressively scale up after
Amazon.com Inc's rapid expansion in the country has heated up
competition.
Founded in 2007 by two former Amazon employees -
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal - Flipkart has raised $760 million since
its launch, not including the recent funds raised.
Here's all you need to know about the deal and Flipkart's future plans:
1)
The recent investment is the largest funding rounds for any e-commerce
company globally – and the single largest round by an internet company
from India.
2) The company said the funds will be used to make long-term strategic investments in India, especially in mobile technology.
3)
Co-led by existing investors Tiger Global Management and Naspers,
Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, along with existing investors
Accel Partners, DST Global, ICONIQ Capital, Morgan Stanley Investment
Management and Sofina, also participated in this latest financing round.
4) It is estimated that the company has so far raised over $1.7 billion from investors, including the current transaction.
5)
The company has also announced an investment of U$100 million (around
Rs 600 crore) in its fashion business over the next 12-18 months.
6)
The company also plans to hire 1,000 engineers with an eye on expanding
its R&D capabilities and is also looking at roping in mobile and
technology experts from Silicon Valley.
7) On the company's IPO
plans, Bansal said: "IPO is not in consideration at all, we are not
thinking about it. We have not settled on a business model that we can
take public."
8) According to The Times of India, Flipkart's
co-founders are now nearly as rich as Infosys co-founder NR Murthy,
thanks to their combined 15 percent stake which is valued at about Rs
6,000 crore after the recent round of fund raising.
9) The ToI
report states that the Bansals are also more valuable than outgoing
Infosys CEO S D Shibulal, who together with his family holds Infosys
shares worth Rs 4,300 crore.
10) Livemint reports that the
e-commerce company is now valued at $7 billion (approximately Rs 42,000
crore), after the latest round of funding. This is more than double the
approximately $3 billion valuation tag the company got after its last
funding round in May 2014.
11) The Economic Times reports that the
Bansals are targetting making Flipkart a $100 billion entity over the
next few years. The report quotes co-founder Sachin Bansal saying, "We
wish to be the first $100 billion internet company from India. Globally
there are only five; three from US and two from China. This funding
gears us up to achieve that."
12) In terms of users, Sachin Bansal
told the Financial Express that he would consider the company
profitable when it hit 100 million customers, though there was no fixed
timeline to achieve the target. He added that the company would think of
profitability only once it starts delivering a product in every third
Indian household.
13) Another Times of India article puts Flipkart
in the league of bigwig privately owned start-ups globally like taxi
hailing app Uber, Pinterest and AirBnb.
14) After the recent
acquisition of fashion portal Myntra, it wouldn't be surprising if
Flipkart was eyeing more buyouts. The Economic Times asked the Bansals
what they look for in an acquisition to which they replied: "Team is the
most important criterion for an acquisition. What they have done in the
past, and if they have proven certain things in the market. Culture of
the company is the second most important. These are just dating
criterion. After that comes the potential to scale in future."
15)
Flipkart is currently 14,000 people strong and has 22 million
registered users. The company completes 4 million daily visits and
delivers 5 million shipments per month.
Posted by : Gizmeon
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