Flipkart, the e-commerce giant which gave Indian startup ecosystem is biggest exit story till date, is now eyeing fresh capital raise, report Mint. This fund-raise is a part of the same exercise which Walmart had indicated of initiating while acquiring Flipkart for close to $16 Billion.
The fund-raise talks initially started with Google showing interest. However, these talks could not materialise into an actual fundraise — despite Walmart indicating incline towards the same — after Sachin Bansal left the company. Bansal was the proponent behind making Google a shareholder within the company. As a result, Google is now looking to venture into e-commerce on its own, and its GPay app will play a significant role in the same.
An interesting part of this fund-raise will be PhonePe. According to the Mint report, Flipkart’s payments arm may raise funds separately. PhonePe separately also received $175 million from Walmart last week, as part of the $500-million commitment. However, a new fund-raise could see PhonePe raising something close to $1 Billion — giving it enough firepower to match up to its much bigger (and now Berkshire Hathaway-backed) Paytm.
A PhonePe spokeswoman has given confirmation of the $175 Million cited above. However, she further added that the company was currently not looking for external investment.
We would like to confirm we that have got a fund infusion of $175 million to continue with our aggressive expansion plans in the offline and online space. This is part of the $500 million commitment that was made to us. Walmart has added these funds to help us compete even more aggressively, grow faster and take on competition.
the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement to Mint.
Flipkart on its end, is no dire need to raise capital. It already has long-enough infusion coming in via Walmart acquisition. However, considering the expensive CAC which India’s still-early e-commerce market costs Flipkart, Amazon and the likes, the former will need fresh strategic investors to come onboard in a bid to fuel its growth over the next few years.
