In what could easily trump all other nervous breakdown moments India’s novice yet hyped startup ecosystem has had, a FactorDaily report is saying that India’s home-grown e retailer Flipkart, is acquiring eBay India, and raising a $2 Billion round to take on Amazon India.
Flipkart is reportedly raising this round at $10Bn, a valuation lower than its previous close of $15Bn, but still significant and considerable enough, considering how bleak things are, with India’s most talked about new-age companies. The valuation is also pretty decent when you take into consideration those on-paper markdowns by various investment firms.
Now while there is of course a lot of glitterati associated with this announcement, this is also some serious business. The reason you ask ? Its plain and simple, and stems from the very names of investors coming in.
According to FD’s report, the round will see the likes of Tencent leading it, by putting in a massive $500 Million. However, what’s interesting, is the entry of Microsoft into core Indian investments. Now when folks like those come up, they aren’t coming to simply jump into India’s already dreadful investment scene. They are all here to take on, and bring down Amazon, in India.
Microsoft’s entry as an investor was available to us as a hint, right when it struck a partnership with Flipkart recently. Both the companies signed an agreement to adopt Azure as latter’s exclusive public cloud platform. Such was the significance of this partnership, that it was announced by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella himself. It also saw Flipkart Group CEO Binny Bansal’s presence, at a recent news event held in Bangalore.
Another source has further told Mishra, that Flipkart’s much rumoured round with Walmart isn’t closed as yet. Walmart could come in as a major investor few months down the line, possibly seeing how this current investment pans out. Walmart’s recent moves — largely the $3Bn Jet.com acquisition and patenting an in-house drone movement tech, are all clear signals of how eagerly the company is waiting for opportunities like these, to take on Amazon.
We’ve mailed Flipkart, Microsoft and Tencent for a comment. Will update the story as soon as we hear something.
This is a developing story…
