Flipkart has announced a raising of $700 million from a clutch of investors, and with the number of shareholders exceeding 50, Singapore based Flipkart Limited has filed for conversion to a Public Company. To give you some context, prior to Flipkart’s $1 billion round of funding in July, it had raised $751 million in total, and this funding now takes the total funds raised by the company to around $2.45 billion, of which $1.91 billion has been raised in 2014 alone. That is almost the same as the $2 billion that Amazon had said it was going to invest in India, earlier this year.
In 2014, Flipkart has raised over 5 times the money it raised in 2013. 5.3x, to be exact.
Investors participating in this round include:
– New Investors: Baillie Gifford, Greenoaks Capital, Steadview Capital, T. Rowe Price Associates and Qatar Investment Authority
– Existing Investors: DST Global, GIC, ICONIQ Capital and Tiger Global
Some things of note:
– Tiger Global has invested in every single round since it first invested in Flipkart in 2010
– Accel Partners, Flipkart’s first investor, has invested intermittently
– Naspers has invested every year since 2012, and twice this year. Interesting to note that this round doesn’t include Naspers, which had invested an additional $242.3M Flipkart in August 2014, as a part of a $1 billion round of funding, . Naspers had then disclosed that it has 16.4% in Flipkart.
– DST Global has invested in three rounds this year, and in every round since it first invested earlier this year.
Flipkart has clarified that conversion to a public company is a statutory requirement, once the number of shareholders exceeds 50, and says this is “no way indicative of any upcoming IPO or of any corporate activity that the company is engaged in either in Singapore or any other part of the world.”
Important: The charts above are based on data compiled from our reports and others:
– August 2014: $1 billion from Tiger Global, Naspers, Singapore government’s GIC, DST Global, Accel Partners.
– May 2014: $210 million from DST Global, Tiger Global, Naspers and ICONIQ Capital.
– October 2013: $160 million from Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina and Vulcan Capital and existing investor Tiger Global
– July 2013: $200 million from Naspers, Accel Partners, Tiger Global, and ICONIQ Capital.
– August 2012: $150 million from Naspers and Tiger Global.
– June 2011: $20 million from Tiger Global.
– June 2010: Up to $10 million from Tiger Global.
– 2009: $1 million from Accel Partners.
Key developments this year, apart from fund raising
– Myntra acquisition: In May, Flipkart had acquired the online fashion store Myntra and had stated plans of investing upward of $100 million into Myntra in the near future. Post acquisition, Myntra CEO Mukesh Bansal had joined Flipkart board and is now heading Flipkart’s fashion business. (Our entire coverage of Flipkart-Myntra deal here)
– Shutting down Payzippy, it’s digital payments business, a little over a year after it launched it
– Making a strategic investment in mobile payment company Ngpay (Jigrahak Mobility Solutions Pvt Ltd), of which it owns 65.71%.
– Hardware: Flipkart forayed into self-branded Android tablets by launching a 7-inch Android tablet Digiflip Pro.
– Exclusive launches: to sell mobile phones from companies like Motorola, Xiaomi, Karbonn and Alcatel among others.
– Subscription Services: Flipkart launched an Amazon Prime-like subscription service called Flipkart First. It is priced at Rs 500 per year and provides free next day delivery, discounted same day delivery, free shipping and priority customer service among others. Flipkart First subscribers also got early access to the Mi3 sale earlier this week. It also launched a student-focused subscription service called Flipkart Students which claims to offer additional discounts on products across various categories to students along with a 50% discount on its Flipkart First subscription service.
