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Following months of rumors, Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has confirmed<\/a> that it has raised $1.4 billion in new funding at a post-money valuation of\u00a0$11.6 billion to battle Amazon and Alibaba.\u00a0The deal includes some big name strategic investors: China\u2019s Tencent, eBay and Microsoft, which\u00a0joint existing Flipkart backers that include Tiger Global, Naspers, Accel and DST Global.<\/p>\n The investment will also see Flipkart take control of eBay India, a second-tier e-commerce player in India,\u00a0which will remain an independent e-commerce site. Separately eBay, which is a minor investor in rival Snapdeal, has inked\u00a0an international deal with eBay to cross-promote products between the services.<\/p>\n Flipkart has now raised $4.65 billion from investors to date, according to Crunchbase<\/a>. Its most recent round prior to today was $700 million in July 2015<\/a>, which valued the company at a much higher $15 billion.<\/p>\n But times have changed at the company.\u00a0Flipkart shuffled its leadership in January<\/a> when former\u00a0Tiger Global executive\u00a0Kalyan Krishnamurthy became its CEO, and it has been hard to keep up with the sheer volume of rumors coming out since then.<\/p>\n Last month, Flipkart was reported to have raised $1 billion<\/a> from investors with plans for a further billion to come later.\u00a0It has also been linked with a merger deal with rival Snapdeal, a move\u00a0media claim is motivated by Snapdeal investor Softbank<\/a>, in a bid to bolster its competitive edge against Amazon, while giving Snapdeal a springboard to bounce back from a series of struggles that have included 500-plus layoffs in February<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the status and likelihood of other deals is unclear, today\u2019s announcement gives Flipkart a series of very strategic allies to battle Amazon and Alibaba-backed Paytm, and \u201cdrive the next phase of e-commerce growth in India,\u201d to use the company\u2019s own words.<\/p>\n I recently wrote that<\/a> India\u2019s e-commerce space has increasingly looked like being a battle between Amazon, which has invested over $5 billion in its local operations<\/a>, and Alibaba, which has made a series of investments<\/a> in Paytm\u2019s commerce, payments and nascent banking businesses, and now Flipkart has the\u00a0war chest and supporters to get itself firmly back into the battle.<\/p>\n At stake is one of the world\u2019s fastest growing internet markets. India\u2019s online population is tipped to reach 450 million-465 million people by June 2017,\u00a0according to a new report co-authored by\u00a0the\u00a0Internet and Mobile Association of India, widening the audience of potential e-commerce customers. While China and the U.S. currently dominate in terms of e-commerce spending, the value of online sales in India is predicted\u00a0to reach $48 billion by 2020, analyst firm Forrester claimed<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a landmark deal for Flipkart and for India as it endorses our tech prowess, our innovative mindset and the potential we have to disrupt traditional markets. It is a resounding acknowledgement that the homegrown tech ecosystem is indeed thriving and succeeding in solving genuine problems in people\u2019s daily lives across all of India,\u201d Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal said in a statement.<\/p>\n On the investor side, a few items are noteworthy.<\/p>\n eBay was an early investor in\u00a0Snapdeal, but sold off part of its stake back in 2015.<\/a>\u00a0Now it finds itself on another team\u2019s bench, although that could of change if the much-speculated Flipkart-Snapdeal merger deal is completed.<\/p>\n This investment is Microsoft\u2019s largest deal in India, and it comes just months after Flipkart switched its infrastructure<\/a> to the U.S. company\u2019s Azure cloud computing platform.\u00a0Satya Nadella, Microsoft\u2019s CEO,\u00a0visited India around the time of the deal in February, so you\u2019d imagine there were also talks around this investment.<\/p>\n Finally, the deal is also the largest investment in India for Tencent, too.\u00a0Tencent has long been a prolific investor, but this deal completes three quite distinctive outcomes for its investment deal. It\u00a0recently backed Tesla, buying up a five percent stake<\/a> for around $2.2 billion, while Snap\u2019s recent IPO gave it the first equity in publicly listed U.S. company. Now it also has a major stake in India\u2019s e-commerce war.<\/p>\n Featured Image: Samrat Mazumdar<\/a>\/Flickr<\/a> UNDER A CC BY-ND 2.0<\/a> LICENSE<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/12\/flipkart-package1.jpg?w=680\")
Following months of rumors, Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has confirmed that it has raised $1.4 billion in new funding at a post-money valuation of\u00a0$11.6 billion to battle Amazon and Alibaba.\u00a0The deal includes some big name strategic investors: China’s Tencent, eBay and Microsoft, which\u00a0joint existing Flipkart backers that include Tiger Global, Naspers, Accel and DST Global.
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