Bangalore: Flipkart has raised $200 million from its existing investors including South African technology company Naspers Group and private equity firms Accel Partners and Tiger Global.
This marks the single-largest round of funding for an Indian e-commerce company.
The fifth round of investment adds to the $181 million that investors have already put into the in the Bangalore-based online retailer and will be used to build technology, an area that Flipkart has been grappling with in the past year. Additionally, the investments will help the company build on its supply chain and human resource.
Sachin Bansal, Co-founder and CEO, said Flipkart can now go to the next level by pioneering technology and supply-chain innovations; this also validates the potential of e-commerce in India. Mohit Bahl, Partner, Transaction Services, KPMG in India, said, “It is a reasonably large investment in the e-commerce space and should help bolster Flipkart’s ability to manage its working capital and make substantial investments in its supply chain and technology.” Industry watchers, however, feel that these three areas are challenging for e-commerce companies in India.
Flipkart, which is in its sixth year of operations with 96 lakh users, recently launched a marketplace (similar to eBay). It has also widened its catalogue with toys, apparels and accessories to compete with companies such as Myntra and Fashion & You. The latest funding comes at a time when the company had to take some tough decisions. In June, it shut down its Flyte service that enabled users pay and download songs online.
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