Snapdeal Buzzing: Microsoft Branded Store, Alibaba/Foxconn May Jointly Invest $500M In Them

Snapdeal has been buzzing over last couple of days and why not, they are forging partnerships and are in funding talks with some of the major global corporations.

Firstly, Microsoft has partnered with Snapdeal to come up with an exclusive Microsoft branded store on their platform. And, rumours are making rounds that Alibaba and Foxconn are jointly picking up 10% stake in Snapdeal at a valuation of USD 5 billion!

Snapdeal Microsoft Branded Store

Microsoft’s own branded store on Snapdeal is already live. Microsoft has been steadily increasing its market share in India, and their partnership with Snapdeal is yet another step to make Microsoft devices more accessible to Indian masses online.

While Microsoft does sell their devices online through Amazon India, it is on piecemeal basis. The branded store on Snapdeal promises to offer users with exclusive deals and offers. all at one place. The store is not only for mobile devices, but also other products as well as software. Along with mobiles, they have tablets, laptops and softwares listed too.

Interestingly though, the product and software prices are slightly higher on their own branded store compared to other sites. For example, here is a comparison for Microsoft Office 365 personal edition.

Site	Microsoft office 365 Personal Price
on Microsoft Snapdeal Store	Rs. 2885
on Flipkart	Rs. 2560
on Amazon	Rs. 2870

Alibaba, Foxconn May invest $500 Million in Snapdeal at $5B Valuation

In what might be a really great news for Snapdeal in their fight against Flipkart and Amazon, Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba and Apple iPhone Assembler Foxconn are in joint talks to invest $500 million in Snapdeal for 10 percent stake according to a WSJ report (pay walled). If the deal goes through, Snapdeal will be valued at whopping USD 5 billion valuation!

Like it’s counterpart Flipkart, Snapdeal too has been raising big ticket funding. Here are the 6 rounds of funding that Snapdeal has raised till date.

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
Sixth Round	Softbank & Others [Yet undisclosed]	October 2014	USD 627 Million
Seventh Round	Alibaba & Foxconn	June 2015	approx USD 500 Million ( still rumoured)

We will update the post when we get official confirmation about this funding