Snapdeal Valued At $1 Billion After Raising $100M Funding

While the online circles have been abuzz with Flipkart’s acquisition of Myntra, there is another significant news in Indian E-Commerce space. Snapdeal, one of the leading marketplace in India has raised $100 million in 5th round of funding according to a report in WSJ.

Singapore state owned investment fund Temasek Holdings, asset management firm Blackrock, Myriad, Premji Invest and Tyborne participated in this round of Snapdeal funding.

Interestingly, this round of funding has been raised at a valuation of roughly USD 1 Billion, according to WSJ. After Flipkart, Snapdeal is the first Indian ecommerce company to get that kind of valuation.

Snapdeal has not confirmed anything as yet, however, WSJ has reported this deal based on two sources who are familiar with this deal. A per reports, the announcement is expected to be made today in New Delhi.

With this round of funding, Snapdeal has notched up a total of USD 335.77 million in 5 rounds. Here are the details of various funding rounds:

Snapdeal Funding Till Date

Round	Who Funded	Date	Amount
First Round	Nexus Venture Partners, Indo-US Venture Partners	January 2011	USD 12 Million
Second Round	Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Indo-US Venture Partners	July 2011	USD 45 Million
Third Round	Ebay, Intel Capital, Nexus Venture Partners & Others	June 2013	USD 50 Million
Fourth Round	Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Saama Capital	Feb 2014	USD 133.77 Million
Fifth Round	Temasek Holdings, Blackrock, Myriad, Premji Invest, Tyborne	May 2014	USD 100 Million

While most would think that the fight to top position in ecommerce space is between 2 players (Amazon and Flipkart), in reality it is triangular fight with Snapdeal now flush with cash to aggressively march forward.

Recently, Snapdeal founder had indicated that they are looking to go for an IPO by listing themselves on US stock exchange rather than in India. This is possible to do because recently Indian Government opened the doors for Indian companies to list in Foreign exchanges without first going for an IPO in India.

In March 2014, Snapdeal’s founder and CEO, Kunal Bahl had indicated that they have grown as much as 500% in past 12 months and they are expected to hit USD 1 billion GMV (Gross Merchandize Value) this year itself, a year earlier than expected.

With Flipkart buying Myntra and Amazon swiftly expanding it sure is going to be an interesting next 12 to 18 months in India ecommerce space. And, not to forget, the likes of Jabong, Tradus, Shopclues and others are also chasing these top 3 players for their pie in growing Indian e-commerce space!