India’s largest e-commerce firm Flipkart is closing a funding round for over $500 million at a valuation of $15.5 billion. The paperwork for the latest round, where only existing investors have participated, is coming to a close, according to an investor source who did not want to be quoted. The most prominent investor in this round is Tiger Global.
At a $15.5 billion valuation, the net worth of Flipkart’s two founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (the two are not related), former Amazon executives, will zoom up to $1.16 billion each. The duo has identical stakes of 7.5% each in the company they launched as an online book retailer in 2007. The Bansals will be the first of India's e-commerce entrepreneurs to turn billionaires.
Flipkart did not respond to an emailed query on the latest financing round.
The firm raised $1.9 billion in 2014, and its valuation rose to $11 billion from $3 billion in the span of that year. Its investors include Russian billionaire Yuri Milner’s DST Global, South Africa’s Naspers and the Qatar Investment Authority.
The e-commerce platform lists 30 million products, ships 8 million packages a month and has 45 million registered users. Flipkart delivers in over 1000 Indian cities and towns. It currently has 33,000 employees.
After the close of this round, Flipkart is said to be contemplating raising further capital in the form of a large round of debt. Local media reported that Flipkart is looking to borrow anywhere between $200 million to $500 million later this year.
As rivals ramp up their activities, Flipkart needs funds to stay ahead on several fronts – acquiring startups, increasing market share through discounting, expanding its logistics network, and ramping up its technology and product teams adding more high-profile Silicon Valley hires to the two Google executives it hired recently.
Flipkart has signed up a spanking new $2 million square feet space in an office park in Bangalore promoted by private equity firm Blackstone Group and Forbes billionaire Jitendra Virwani’s Embassy Developers. It is billed India's largest commercial real estate deal.
Flipkart cofounders Binny Bansal (sitting) and Sachin Bansal (image: Flipkart)
