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Flipkart, the country’s largest online retailer, has raised $1-billion (Rs 6,013 crore) funding in fresh capital, in one of the largest funding for any e-commerce company globally.
The funding was co-led by existing investors Tiger Global Management and Naspers. The company will utilise the proceeds to make long-term strategic investments in India, especially in mobile technology, Flipkart said in a statement.
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 the fund-raising, it added.
“We believe the Internet will improve the quality of life for millions of Indians, and e-commerce is going to play a huge role in this change. The focus at Flipkart is to continue to make shopping online simpler and more accessible through the use of technology,” Flipkart founder, Sachin Bansal, said.
The company has around 22 million registered users and handles five million shipments in a month.
Internet users
Now, India has 243 million internet users.
“We want to enable every Indian to either shop or sell online. And we believe that the power of the mobile Internet is going to help us achieve this goal,” he added.
IPO plans
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.”
In May, Flipkart had raised $210-million funding, bringing private equity firm DST Global on board as an investor.
It is estimated that the firm has, so far, raised over $1.7 billion from investors, including the current transaction.
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