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Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce company, on Wednesday said it has raised $200 million (around Rs 1,200 crore) in a fresh round of funding . Its existing investors including Naspers, Accel Partners, Tiger Global and Iconiq Capital also took part.
This makes it the largest ever amount to be invested in an e-commerce company in India in a single round. This also matches the $200-million funding that mobile advertising network Inmobi had raised from Japan’s Softbank, the single largest funding round for a new generation tech firm in India.
The fresh round of funding comes soon after Flipkart’s foray into the marketplace model which eliminates the problem of inventory-based e-commerce model. The Bangalore-based company said the funding will be used for building and strengthening its technology capabilities, bolstering the supply chain and developing talent pool.
Flipkart is estimated to have raised over $380 million so far. In August last year, the company had raised about $150 million in a round led by Naspers and participated by Tiger Global. However, the company had not disclosed this publicly. Prior to this, it had raised $20 million in 2011 and $10 million in 2010 from Tiger Global.
“This investment validates the belief our investors have not only in our capabilities as a market leader -– but also in the potential of e-commerce in India. We are building a world-class organisation that has always led from the front, taking advantage of and even creating a plethora of opportunities for the e-commerce industry,” said Sachin Bansal, co-founder and CEO of Flipkart.com.
Started in 2007 by IIT Delhi alumni Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Flipkart now boasts of 9.6 million registered users with almost one million users visiting the website every day. From being the largest e-tailer of books, it has now forayed into all possible products, which can be sold online starting from electronic items to apparel to fashion accessories.
“Just to give you an example, last month there was a day when we delivered 130,000 items, which means we had to deliver about 1.5 items in a second. During the peak hours in the day, we are delivering like four to five items a second over 200 cities in India. To handle that kind of scale and speed, we are bringing in the best processes and automation technologies available from across the world,” said Binny Bansal, co-founder and COO of Flipkart.
According to the company, the immediate goal before it is to expand its marketplace platform, which now sells goods of about 500 merchants. The company is slowly building the fulfilment obligation for the end customers. As a part of which, it is also planning to monetise its warehouses by offering it to its registered merchants for a price.
Flipkart has also set a target to achieve $1 billion in GMV by 2015. According to Sachin Bansal, it has crossed the half-way mark and is comfortably placed to achieve this milestone before the target year.
