Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, has invested in Delhi-based online retail marketplace Snapdeal. While Tatas exact investment has not been disclosed, the corporate czar, who, till 2012, led the $103 billion (over Rs 6 lakh crore) Tata Group, has now become the most high-profile individual investor in Indias hyper-competitive e-commerce industry. According to sources, Tata has bought the stake held by former Microsoft executive Kenneth Glass, who was an early investor in the company. Kunal Bahl, co founder and chief executive of Snapdeal, declined to comment on Glass exit. Bahl termed Tatas investment a validation of the companys growth. Last January we were down to our last $100,000 in the bank. From there to getting someone like Tata on board, it is a validation of the journey we have had, said Bahl, 31, who co-founded Snapdeal with his school mate Rohit Bansal in 2010. The company, said Bahl, has grown 600% annually the last two years. The announcement comes a day after Snapdeal entered into a partnership with Tata Value Homes to sell apartment units of projects spread across five cities, namely, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. This investment also underlines the growing interest shown by Indias traditional industries in the fast-growing e-commerce sector. Recently traditional retail majors like Reliance and Arvind have made forays online. Earlier this month retail firm Arvind launched online site Creyate, which will retail customisable apparel. The sector has also attracted large investments in the past few months. Snapdeal raised over $233 million (Rs 1,400 crore) this year in two rounds from investors like eBay, Singapore-based Temasek and WiproBSE 1.31 % chairman Azim Premjis family office Premji Invest. Market leader Flipkart too raised two rounds of funding this year. In July it raised $1 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) from existing investors and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC. Global major Amazon also announced a $2 billion (over Rs 12,000 crore) investment for its India operations in July. Flipkart reached $1 billion in sales last fiscal and Snapdeal touched this milestone recently. We have reached $1 billion in sales at one-third the time that Flipkart took, spending a fraction of the money and with one-tenth the people. We have been able to do this because we have been very focused in our execution, said Bahl. Bahl, who said he is not actively looking for further funding, has stated in the past that the company will focus on adding new merchants, new categories and focus on mobile commerce to ensure growth. Apart from apartments, Snapdeal has launched a catering supplies segment recently. In the next few months, the four year-old platform is planning to add 10 more categories. The company also plans to increase its seller count from 50,000 merchants to one million in the next three years
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 06:57:26 +0000
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