BackRatan Tata turns e-commerce investor with Snapdeal funding
The announcement comes a day after Snapdeal seals partnership with Tata Value Homes to sell its flats online
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New Delhi: Ratan Tata, former chairman of Tata Sons Ltd, has made a personal investment in Snapdeal.com, the online retailer said in a statement, without specifying the amount.
“This investment by Tata, a renowned name in the Indian as well as global business circles, is of great significance to the company and stands testimony to the growth and success seen by the company in a short span of four years," said Kunal Bahl, co-founder and chief executive of Snapdeal.com, which is run by New Delhi-based Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
Indian e-commerce firms have recently been attracting a lot of funds as online retail increasingly finds favour with consumers. Flipkart, India’s biggest online retailer, received as much as $1 billion in fresh capital in July.
Wednesday’s announcement comes a day after Snapdeal’s Tuesday announcement of a partnership with Tata Value Homes Ltd to sell its flats online.
Snapdeal will offer online bookings of projects by the unit of Tata Housing Development Co. Ltd. Customers will be able to book an apartment on Snapdeal by paying ₹ 30,000 each starting 28 August. The partnership will cover seven housing projects with more than 1,000 units on sale in cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Chennai.
Snapdeal has received funding of close to $400 million, according to Bahl.
In February, the San Jose, California-based eBay led a fund infusion of $133.7 million into Jasper Infotech. In April 2013, eBay led an investment of $50 million into the company. Entrust Group Inc. and US-based investor Kenneth Glass were the new investors in the February round, while venture capital firms Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Kalaari Capital committed funding in both rounds.
The company has touched $1 billion in value of goods sold on the site, Bahl said on Tuesday. The company is attracting significant investor interest, but it is sufficiently funded at the moment, he said. “In last January, we had about a hundred million dollars in account," Bahl said. “We have three times the money we have already spent."
Snapdeal offers over 5 million products across 500-plus categories from over 50,000 sellers on its website.
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