Dipti Gore
Snapdeal, one of India’s largest e-commerce player will soon be announcing its 7th acquisition, the company’s founder and CEO , Kunal Bahl has said.
Although Mr Bahl refused to comment on the particulars of the acquisition and name the company, there are speculations that it could be a fashion portal. Snapdeals rival Flipkart had acquired fashion portal Myntra last year.
The Indian e-commerce space is buzzing with organic and inorganic growth activities.
In 2015, Snapdeal is expected to spend 60% of its budget towards tech ramp up that will include acquisitions, top management hiring and for its recently opened development center in Bengaluru.
Till now the company has acquired Grabbon.com, esportsbuy.com, Shopo.in, Doozton.com, Wishpicker.com, Smartprix.com.
In another news, Snapdeal is also said to be in talks with investors including international hedge funds to raise $400 million. This could increase the company’s valuation to about $4.5 Billion, almost doubling since October.
Last October, Japan’s SoftBank Corp had invested $627 million in Snapdeal. Prior to that, Mr Ratan Tata had invested an undisclosed amount of money in the firm. Prior to Mr. Tata’s investment, Snapdeal had raised $100 million (Rs 590 crore) from a group of new investors including US-based BlackRock Financial Management, Singapore’s state investment firm Temasek, Hong Kong-based Myriad Asset Management and Tybourne Capital Management, besides PremjiInvest, the personal investment vehicle of Wipro chairman Azim Premji.
Just three months back the company had raised $133.77 million (Rs 830 crore) led by existing investor eBay Inc with participation from other existing investors Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Saama Capital, in the third-biggest funding round in an Indian tech firm.
Till now Snapdeal has raise $1 Billion in total, most of which has happened in 2014.