E-commerce wars: Not just Flipkart vs Amazon, it's now Murthy vs Premji, Tata

India’s e-commerce sector may seem like a fight between Flipkart and Amazon, and sometimes eBay and Snapdeal, but a closer look at the money-trail reveals some heavyweights from Corporate India in the fray too. And the latest entrant boosts the sector’s profile multi-fold.

Today Ratan Tata, Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus, confirmed that he has invested in online marketplace Snapdeal.com.

“Mr Tata has made a personal investment in the company,” Snapdeal cofounder and CEO Kunal Bahl announced. The investment amount, however, was not disclosed.

“An investment by a legendary and respected figure like Mr Tata is an excellent validation of our focused strategy on building a long term enterprise and marks the start of a very important phase for the company,” Bahl said.

The Delhi-based firm had raised $100 million (about Rs 600 crore) in May from Temasek, BlackRock Inc, Myriad, Premji Invest and Tybourne, while in February, it had received funding worth $133.7 million (about Rs 830 crore) from its existing investor, eBay and others.

Some of India’s biggest businessmen, like Azim Premji and NRN Murthy, will be keeping Tata company in the e-commerce space.

_The Times of India_earlier reported that IT tycoons Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji were at opposing ends of the e-commerce battle, with the Infosys co-founder partnering with Amazon and the Wipro chairman having investments in Myntra and Snapdeal.

Murthy and Amazon joined hands to provide back-end support to get Indian companies online. Murthy’sCatamaran Ventures’s partnership with Amazon Asia will target small- and medium-sized firms.

Earlier this year, Premji led a consortium of investors that pumped in $100 million into Snapdeal. Premji was also part of a group of private investors who infused $50 million into fashion portal Myntra , which was later acquired by Flipkart.

Analysts who spoke to TOI saidthat while both Murthy and Premji seemed enthusiastic about the e-commerce sector their chosen paths were different - Premji chose a traditional venture capital-style financial route, while Murthy chose to set up full-scale operations with Amazon.

All the interest from India Inc into the e-commerce sector makes sense when you look at the numbers involved. Online sales of retail goods totalled $2 billion in 2013, according to research firm Forrester and Technopak forecasts that sales are expected to reach $76 billion by 2021.

With inputs from PTI