Today we’re taking a look at recent cashback and e-commerce developments in India. Business World reports on the binge of Indian startups like Snapdeal acquiring other smaller startups. Hyperlocal grocery startup Grofers gets another $120 million in new VC funding from Softbank and others. Apparently VCs including Dell Ventures, with $300 million to invest, can’t get enough of the potential Indian market. Meanwhile, after eight months, Flipkart has still not found a replacement for its departed CFO.
Tracxn profiles the 15 top-funded ecommerce players in India, ranked by funding received. In a special deal, more than 5,000 Indian retailers will be selling their products through Amazon in the US during the holiday season beginning with Black Friday. Ethnic products CraftsVilla plans to invest $10 million to acquire data science and mobile technology companies. According to Technopak, the online grocery market in India is now at $100 million and is expected to grow to $25 billion by 2020. Meet an interesting collection of 20 BW Accelerate startups chosen to participate in a three-month mentor program.
Acquisition Is the Buzzword Among Indian Startups
Startups in the country have never seen so much of action. First, they have been in news for reasons good enough with investor interests increasing in the sector and lots of innovative ideas emerging with a few success stories in the market. Second, the sector has grabbed the attention of market watchers for not-so-good reasons as a handful of early stage ventures have adopted drastic measures to curtail their expansion plans, throwing up significant questions on the sustainability model of the businesses across.
Now, amidst all this, there is also a third category of early stage ventures which have not yet been in news so much. This category comprises powerful ideas rolled out in the new entrepreneurial ecosystem grabbed up by bigger venture-backed startups.
Consider this: e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal, which has so far received $1.7 billion in private equity and venture funding, has acquired 7 such firms this year, including names such as Freecharge, LetsGomo, RupeePower and Reduce Data. Snapdeal, founded in 2010, has so far received funding from Softbank Corp, PremjiInvest, Temasek, Bessemer, Ratan Tata, IndoUS Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Saama Capital, Nexus Ventures and Intel Capital, among others. Via www.businessworld.in
Dell Ventures to invest in Indian startups with its $300m fund
Dell Ventures, the $300 million venture fund arm of technology giant Dell Inc, plans to invest in the new-age disruptive startups in India as it eyes a bigger push in the Asian markets, according to a report in The Economic Times. The company is expected to make an official announcement on the same shortly, the report added.
The fund will primarily support startups which are building disruptive solutions with newer technologies such as cloud computing, security and analytics, and startups that have moved beyond the early stage. The company is also open to forming strategic partnerships with such companies. Dell’s proposed investment plan comes at a time when global companies like Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Holdings, Japan’s Softbank and e-tailer Amazon are already pumping in billions of dollars in the robust Indian startup ecosystem. Via dealstreetasia.com
Grofers Raises Rs. 800Cr ($120 MM) in Fresh Funding Led by SoftBank Exclusive Launch
Grofers, the hyperlocal delivery start-up founded in December, 2013, has raised a fresh funding of Rs 800 crore ($120 million). This new infusion of venture capital is led by SoftBank and Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner. As per sources, their existing investors: Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital have also chipped in this round of funding. As a result of this new round of funding, Grofers has increased their valuation to more than $300 million; which raises the question: Has it overtaken Big Basket now?
This is Grofers’ 4th round of funding. Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital invested Rs 66 crore ($10 million) in February this year, followed by Rs 218 crore ($33 million) in April. Their first round of funding came in December last year, when Sequoia and Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal invested an undisclosed amount in Grofers. Via trak.in
Shocking: India’s Biggest Ecommerce Platform Unable To Find a Chief Financial Officer Since February
India’s most respected and loved E-commerce site, Flipkart founded by two college friends who studied together at IIT-Delhi and worked together in Amazon. It’s revenue is estimated to be somewhere between $500 million to $1 billion, to create which it has had to pull in around $200 million in venture funding over four rounds till now.
But since February this year, Flipkart been unable to find a Chief Financial Officer after its erstwhile CFO Karandeep Singh resigned unexpectedly. Singh, an experienced professional had joined Flipkart just over a year before his resignation. He was widely regarded as sort of the “grown up” hired to steer Flipkart towards a successful IPO, akin to, say, Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook.
Needless to say Singh’s exit came as a huge shock to entrepreneurs, investors and keen observers of the E-commerce sector in India. Via pixr8.com
Meet the 15 top-funded ecommerce startups in India this year
Ecommerce accounted for nearly half of the US$6.4 billion of funding in Indian startups in the first three quarters of 2015. It continues last year’s trend when India had its first billion dollar funding round in Flipkart, followed by nearly two-thirds of a billion dollars invested in Snapdeal.
After Japan’s SoftBank came in with bagfuls of cash for Snapdeal last year, it was Alibaba’s turn to make its move in early 2015, and what a surprise it was. The horse it backed in India’s ecommerce race is none other than the nimble Paytm. Later in the year, it also betted on Snapdeal for a two-pronged proxy war against its global rival Amazon on Indian turf. Now let’s take a closer look at the 15 top ecommerce players in India, ranked by the funding they received this year, according to data from venture capital analytics firm Tracxn. Via techinasia.com
Amazon’s Indian sellers get a taste of US holiday season
Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest online retailer, will sell products from 5,000 Indian sellers to its customers in the US during the ongoing holiday season starting with the Black Friday sale, offering a lucrative sales channel to sellers that rivals such as Flipkart and Snapdeal can’t match.
Amazon said it has already shipped about 1,00,000 products from Indian sellers, including electronics, accessories, brass idols, nautical instruments and cricket bats, to its warehouses in the US in preparation for the huge demand expected during the holiday season. These products will also be available for one-day delivery through the company’s subscription service, Amazon Prime. Via dealstreetasia.com
CraftsVilla earmarks $10 million for acquisitions
Online marketplace for ethnic products CraftsVilla has earmarked nearly $10 million (about Rs 65 crore) to acquire companies in the data science and mobile technology spaces. Indian new publishing company The Indian Express Group has invested in four technology startups for an undisclosed amount.
Online marketplace for ethnic products CraftsVilla has earmarked nearly $10 million (about Rs 65 crore) to acquire companies in the data science and mobile technology spaces. The company has already begun talks with startups in Malaysia and Indonesia for potential acquisitions that would range between $1-2 million. The deal with at least two companies is likely to be announced in this quarter. Via dealstreetasia.com
Grocery eCommerce Scenario in India: Challenges, Competition & Threats
The year 2015 started with a plethora of investments happening in the ‘hyper local’ space, be it food delivery, home services or logistics. On the same front, a number of new grocery delivery firms were also seen sprouting and scaling up. The veterans in this space BigBasket, ZopNow etc. too garnered attention from VC investors. However, the autumn of this year is proving cold for several startups as they struggle with funding challenges, can grocery delivery companies fare any better?
With increasing penetration of Internet connectivity (rise of smartphone users), growing popularity of mobile shopping, and dealing in daily consumption commodities, grocery e-stores do hold a potential in India. The market share is estimated to be less than $100 million at present, but expects to cross $25 billion by 2020, expected to grow at a rate of 25-30% year-on-year in major Indian cities, as predicted by retail consultancy Technopak.
According to Ken Research report, Indian online groceries market is envisaged to grow and reach Rs 2.7 billion ($40 billion) by FY’2019. There are roughly 25 odd companies in this space that have received and announced external funding in 2015. Via iamwire.com
Meet the 20 startups selected for BW Accelerates second batch
BW Accelerate, a startup accelerator initiative from media firm Business World, has announced the second batch of 20 startups for a three-month mentoring programme.
The sector-agnostic programme would help startups with product development and insights, go-to-market strategy and customer acquisition, business expansion, networking, strategic marketing and fund-raising. This batch was selected from more than 450 applications from startups based out of Delhi-NCR. Via techcircle.vccircle.com
Black Friday Roundup tomorrow
Tomorrow, we’ll have a full analysis of Black Friday sales results in the US. Stay tuned.