Tiger Global leads $100m round for India’s ShopClues

According to The Economic Times, the round - which values the start-up at $350 million - also included existing investors Helion Venture Partners and Nexus Venture Partners. So far the business is understood to have raised over $115 million, including the latest round.

ShopClues was set up in Gurgaon in 2011. AVCJ Research data show that it raised its first institutional round from Nexus and others in early 2012; it subsequently went on to raise another $10 million from Nexus, Helion, and Japan’s Beenos (then Netprice.com) a year later.

This latest round follows two years during which the company has been plagued by controversy. The start-up was founded by Sandeep Aggarwal - a former tech analyst with research firm Collins Stewart - and ex-eBay executive Sanjay Sethi. However, Aggarwal stepped down from his executive position in 2013 following his arrested on charges of insider trading relating to his previous job. He pled guilty to these charges.

The arrest was likely to have derailed earlier plans for a $50 million round. Aggarwal's wife Radhika Ghai Aggarwal is now listed as co-founder with Sethi acting as CEO.

More recently the company was accused of selling counterfeit products under the L’Oreal label and has since been banned by the Dehli High Court from selling any products under the French cosmetics brand. Like its competitor Snapdeal, ShopClues works on a zero-inventory model where it provides a platform for sellers and facilitates transactions on their behalf.

ShopClues shares the market with three other horizontal players: Amazon India and Flipkart, plus the much smaller HomeShop18. With the exception of Amazon India - which is bankrolled by its US parent - most of India's major e-commerce players have had significant VC backing.

Flipkart has so far led the pack in terms of funding, most recently raising a $700 million round from new and existing investors. Snapdeal, meanwhile, has received about $1 billion in total - the majority of which came in a $627 million round led by SoftBank in October. HomeShop18 is backed by SAIF Partners and OCP Asia.

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• Topics
• Venture
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Venture
• Consumer
• Tiger Global Management
• TMT
• India