Marking its maiden investment into India, Amazon has led a $10 Million funding round in Online gift card shop, QwikCilver Solutions. Though the investment is huge, Amazon has reportedly acquired a stake believed to be just under 15%.
The stake has been picked up by Amazon Asia Pacific, an entity based out of Singapore. Existing investors Helion Ventures and Accel Partners also participated in this round. QwikCilver had earlier raised funding through Helion and Accel in 2008.
Kumar Sudarsan, co-founder and director of QwikCilver, said that this fresh funding would be utilised in scaling up core operations and network enhancement across the region. He further added,
The motivation to get Amazon on board was that they will be able to bring in best practices and global strategies to help us scale the sector to the next level
An Amazon spokesperson said:
Amazon Asia Pacific Pvt Ltd has taken a minority stake in QwikCilver Solutions, a private limited company providing end-to-end stored-value-card solutions to retail and corporate customers in India.
We believe the company is well poised to provide its customers, solutions that will help them take advantage of the fast growing customer base in the country.
QwikCilver Solutions is a Private Limited Company providing end-to-end stored-value-card solutions to retail and corporate customers. Gifting, which is company’ marquee product, helps consumers and corporate clients to purchase gift cards and vouchers of numerous brands.
The company claims to have 90% of the over $500 Milion gift cards market within the country, with an annualised sales run rate of over Rs, 1,000 crore.
