Snapdeal wins big in online retail; raises $100 mn, now valued at $1 bn

One of the biggest online marketplaces Snapdeal has reportedly raised $100 million (Rs 590 crore) from a group of five investors.

This funding comes only three months after Snapdeal raised $133.77 million, much of it from eBay Inc. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the fresh round of funding values the company at roughly $1 billion.

This makes Snapdeal the fourth Indian start-up to reach the milestone after rival Flipkart, data analytics provider Mu Sigma and mobile advertising network InMobi, reports TheEconomic Times.

[caption id=“attachment_77898” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Screenshot taken from website.[/caption]

The investors includedAzim Premji’s family officePremji Invest,Singapore state-owned investment companyTemasek, asset management firmBlackRock, Hong Kong based asset management company Myriad and hedge fund Tybourne, also based in Hong Kong, reports ET.

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Chief Executive Kunal Bahl told the WSJ that retail will only expand from now. “There is a tremendous opportunity for e-commerce in India,” he said. Bahl told Medianamathe company will use the money to grow Snapdeal’s 250-person engineering team and beef up its listings from small businesses.

Started in February 2010, Snapdeal.com is one of India’s first e-commerce players to adopt a market-place model, which is now the preferred model in the sector, with the likes of Flipkart also trying this model, moving away from the inventory- based business it adopted in 2007, when it started.

With over 20 million members, 500 plus product categories and over 20,000 sellers, Snapdeal.com had earlier said that it plans to clock gross merchandise sales on the platform of $1 billion by 2015, while it expects FY14 to end with a gross merchandise value of Rs 3,000 crore.