E-commerce major Flipkart has officially confirmed that it has raised a massive $1 billion investment in a round co-led by existing investors Tiger Global & Naspers. New investor Singapore government's sovereign wealth fund GIC and existing investors DST Global, Tiger Global and Accel Partners have also participated in this round. Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal said they will be using this capital for strategic investments in technology and mobile platforms. "This investment helps us think really long term and take big bets". The company will also be using the investment for acquisitions in the fashion, mobile apps, robotics and wearable segments among others. This is the largest investment raised by an Internet company in India and probably one of the largest investment raised by an Internet company globally. Interestingly, this investment comes on the heels of raising $210 million from DST Global and existing investors Tiger Global, Naspers, and Iconiq Capital in May this year and $360 million from Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina, Vulcan Capital, and Tiger Global late last year. Prior to this investment, the company had raised an overall $751 million investment until now. Over the past months, Flipkart has been carrying out a series of initiatives to strengthen its position in the country, where the battle is now essentially between three key marketplaces: Amazon India which is aggressively rolling out more categories to its site, eBay-backed Snapdeal which has raised over $300 million investment, including a $100 million round from Temasek, BlackRock Inc., Myriad, Premji Invest and Tybourne in May this year and Flipkart. These include: - Myntra acquisition: Earlier in May, it had acquired the online fashion…
