Flipkart raises $160 million in latest round of funding

Indian E-commerce giant Flipkart has now managed to raise another $160 million to add to its previous rounds of funding conducted this year. The news came via a tweet from co-founder and current CEO Sachin Bansal, which read, “The rumours were true. We raised $360m. Cheers to everyone at flipkart.”  

The company was last seen raising $200 million (roughly Rs 1,200 crore) from existing investors in July. The deal was referred to as the single-largest round of funding for an Indian e-commerce company. The last deal was also the fifth round of funding for the online retail site.

Companies like Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina and Vulcan Capital and Tiger Global have added to this round of investments, according to the Next Big What. The earlier round saw the company drawing funds from  investors like Tiger Global, Naspers, Accel Partners and ICONIQ Capital. The funding, according to earlier reports, will be used to build up Flipkart’s technology and supply chain capabilities, develop the company’s talent pool and further enhance the end-user’s experience.

Flipkart has raised another $160 million in current round of funding

The total funding now gathered from investors, according to the company’s CEO, stands at $360 million (roughly Rs 2240 crore). Flipkart had earlier raised $150 million from Accel Partners and Tiger Global. The company first began to gather investments last year, where the first set of deals managed to net company $140 million in funding.

The company currently has a registered user pool of one crore with more than 10 lakh unique visitors being registered every day. Data has showed that the company was able to ship out 1.3 lakh items in a day, a peak registered in June this year. Flipkart also recently launched PayZippy, an online payments solution. The site itself saw new categories being added like apparel, footwear, toys, sunglasses, home furnishings, accessories, sports and fitness as well as eBooks.

The substantial investment that Flipkart is getting comes at an interesting time. The e-commerce market in India has definitely been seeing a great deal of growth, and other players like Amazon, Snapdeal, to name a few, have also been jumping onto the bandwagon over the last few years.