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Flipkart: Can it Ride out the Fund Crunch?
EXCERPTS
FLIPKART: EARLY DAYS
Flipkart was started in 2007 by Sachin Bansal (Sachin) and Binny Bansal (Binny) (not related), both alumni of IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), a premier engineering institute in India. Sachin and Binny had learned the ropes of the e-commerce game during their short stint working with Amazon’s back-end operations in Bengaluru. Initially, the Bansals wanted to start a comparison site featuring products of different e-commerce companies in India. They soon dropped the idea because back then the Indian e-commerce industry had neither the depth nor the scale to generate traffic for such a comparison site. The founders then moved on to start an e-commerce platform to sell books. It was started with Rs 0.4 million as seed capital from its founders.... |
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GROWTH
As the competition caught up, there was only one way ahead ─ to grow faster than the market at any cost. The strategy boiled down to raising more money and consuming it faster. GMV had become the standard measure to value an e-commerce business in India...
MAKING OF A UNICORN
In 2013, South African Internet Company Naspers, Accel Partners, Tiger Global, and Iconiq Capital infused $200 million in Flipkart, taking its valuation to $1.5 billion and making it a Unicorn. ..
THE TIDES TURN
In late 2015, Flipkart was seeking debt funds, which were unusual for a company fueled by VCs. A Flipkart spokesperson said, “Our business is growing at a rapid pace and we have sufficient capital to scale. ..
EXHIBITS
Exhibit I:Tiger Global
Exhibit II: Flipkart’s Milestones
Exhibit III: GMV – Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal
Exhibit IV:Flipkart Series of Funding
Exhibit V:Private Equity Outlook in India
