Palred Technologies Ltd (Palred) is planning to expand the operations of its e-commerce arm LatestOne.com to Turkey and Mexico.
“We have registered a subsidiary in Turkey and we would like to start operations there after we come profitable in India. Mexico will happen after that,” Palred Technologies Chairman Palem Srikanth Reddy told BusinessLine .
“We are making gross profits unlike several players in the area. We have reduced losses to ₹7.5 crore this from about ₹22 crore last year,” he said.
Retail unitsIn order to expand the reach, the firm will set up a retail network, through franchisee route, in the financial year 2017-18. “We are planning about 50 of them in the next two years. Of this, 20 kiosks would come up in 2017-18,” he said.
The three-year-old firm, which sells mobile accessories online, has raised ₹22 crore on Tuesday, taking the total funds raised so far to ₹30 crore.
The investors include Mathew Cyriac (former Co-Head of Blackstone India Private Equity Business), Chidambaram Palaniappan (founder of Florintree), K Madhavan (Joint Managing Director of Star TV India) and Bharat Sheth (Managing Director of Great Eastern Shipping). The preferential allotment of shares was made at a price of ₹145 a share.
The promoters invested ₹30 crore in the venture, with cash reserves of ₹22 crore prior to the latest round of fund raising.
ExpansionAbout ₹10 crore from the proceeds on building a fulfilment centre in Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh. “We have not decided on the location yet. But it will be near to the Bengaluru airport. About ₹1.5 crore would be spent on the facility and ₹4-5 crore on inventory. We might need about ₹ 5 crore as working capital,” he said.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.