Online and mobile classified platform Quikr.com has raised a huge USD 90 million (roughly Rs. 550 crore) round of funding from a clutch of investors. This deal, which was signed last week brings Quikr valuation to over USD 250 million (approx Rs. 1530 crore) reports ET. This is the biggest deal for an Indian online services company, who are not into E-Commerce space. The funds raised in the latest round will be utilized for aggressive expansion.
The latest round of funding was led by Swedish investment firm Kinnevik. According to ET, the investment was spread across two rounds with their existing investors Warburg Pincus doing the initial investment in September of last year. Quikr’s other existing investors, eBay, Omidyar Network, Matrix Partners India, Nokia Growth Partners and Norwest Venture Partners also participated in this round.
Quikr has raised close to USD 150 million (Rs. 900 crore) in seven rounds till date, making it one of the best funded internet companies in Indian.
For the Swedish Firm Kinnevik, this is their first investment in India, but they come with good experience in Classifieds space. They also have already invested in Avito, the largest Russian classifieds platform.
While their number of online classified sites in India, Quikr and OLX are the only 2 that lead this space by a large margin. OLX.in has been fighting neck to neck with Quikr for quite sometime now, however, Quickr seems to have forged ahead of OLX in recent months. See the graph below for comparison between OLX and Quikr.
It is interesting to note that while Quikr has higher unique visitors, the time on site and pageviews generated by OLX are far higher than Quikr.
[…] is Quikr’s second raise in 2014. Earlier in March they had raised USD 90 million funding led by Swedish investment firm Kinnevik with participation from their existing investors. During […]