The VC funding money flowing into India’s lighthouse eCommerce portal Flipkart is next to unbelievable. The ToI reports that Flipkart has raised another $500 to $600 million in funding from it’s existing investors at a pre-money valuation of whopping $10 billion! The funding was finalized at the company’s board meeting that occurred in Singapore recently. The funding announcement is expected to be made soon.
According to the report, their existing large investors Tiger Global, South Africa’s Naspers and Yuri Milner’s DST Global & others have pumped in $50-100 million each. They have also received nominal funding from an unnamed new investor. Tiger Global is the largest stakeholder in Flipkart who alone have invested $700 million!
This funding will be Flipkart’s third raise in this year alone. They had raised eye-popping $1 billion in funding in July and $210 million from DST Global in May 2014.
Flipkart’s 9 Rounds of VC Funding Till Date
| Round | Who Funded | Date | Amount |
| First Round | Accel India | 2009 | USD 1 Million |
| Second Round | Tiger Global | 2010 | USD 10 Million |
| Third Round | Tiger Global | June 2011 | USD 20 Million |
| Fourth Round | Naspers / ICONIQ Capital | August 2012 | USD 150 Million |
| Fifth Round | Naspers, Accel Partners, Tiger Global, and ICONIQ Capital | July 2013 | USD 200 Million |
| Sixth Round | Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina and Vulcan Capital, Tiger Global | Oct 2013 | USD 160 Million |
| Seventh Round | DST Global | May 2014 | USD 210 Million |
| Eighth Round | Tiger Global, DST Global, Accel Partners (plus other new investors) | July 2014 | USD 1000 Million |
| Ninth Round | Tiger Global, Naspers, DST Global & others (+1 New) | Nov 2014 | USD 500 – 600 Million |
| Total | USD 2251–2351 Million |
This funding round from Flipkart comes at a time when Flipkart is getting ready to to go public on US stock markets, which is expected in next 2-3 years.
Flipkart has not made any comments on this round of funding as yet!
With pre-money valuation of $10 billion, Flipkart now ranks among the elite group tech startups like Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox and Snapchat to have $10B+ valuation
Flipkart is undoubtedly flush with cash – Infact, according to sources cited by the report, many new investors were interested in putting money in Flipkart, however themselves were not keen on raising more money at this point.
The kind of funding raised by Flipkart and Snapdeal recently just goes to show that VC’s are betting big on the future of eCommerce in India. With internet user base in India crossing 300 million by end of this year and probably reaching close to 500 million by end of 2016, the number of Indian online shoppers are bound to grow at hectic pace.
While all the ecommerce marketplaces are making big losses right now, VCs are surely of the opinion that things are going to see big turnaround in years to come!
What do you think?
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