India’s Flipkart raises $150m in fourth round of funding

The capital injection values the entire company at around $850 million, LiveMint reported, citing two people with knowledge of the situation. This is lower than the $1 billion valuation that had previously been suggested for a company widely regarded as one of the hottest prospects in India's internet industry.

It was reported last October that Flipkart was in talks with The Carlyle Group and General Atlantic among others over a potential $150-200 million joint investment, but that the deal was being held up by differing valuation expectations.

Flipkart, which was set up in 2007 by two former Amazon software developers, raised $31 million from its first three rounds of funding. It received $1 million from Accel in 2009 and then Tiger Global put in $10 million in 2009 and another $20 million in 2010.

The company claims to be India's biggest online bookseller, with over 10 million titles distributed from warehouses in five cities. It has over 1,000 employees and sells around 200,000 books a year, offering a 10-15% discount on every purchase. Consumer goods including mobile phones, electronic appliances, music and movies can also be bought through the site.

Flipkart generated INR500 million ($10 million) in revenues for the fiscal year ended March 2011, up from INR116 million in 2009-2010. It is thought to be on course to reach INR5 billion for the current fiscal year.

According to an estimate by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, online shoppers in the country will treble to 54 million by 2015. Meanwhile, First Data Corp. and ICICI Merchant Services estimated in a December report that the Indian e-commerce market was worth INR500 billion, up from INR196 billion in 2009.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Expansion
• India
• TMT
• Growth capital
• Accel Partners
• Tiger Global Management