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PE investments in e-commerce soar 47.3 percent in 2014

By Sujata Sachdeva

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With mega investments in e-commerce, private equity (PE) investments surged 47.3 percent year-on-year 10.9 billion dollars (over Rs 6,89,000 crores) across 436 deals in 2014, the second highest after 529 deals cracked in 2007. Flipkart, Snapdeal and Olacabs were among the companies that attracted the highest PE investments during 2014.

E-commerce firms accounted for almost 4.1 billion dollars (over Rs 25,900 crores) across 106 deals or 37.6 percent of the investment pie during 2014. Just the top two home grown e-tailers Flipkart and Snapdeal, attracted 3 billion dollars (over Rs 19,000 crores) between them in 2014. Flipkart, via its Singapore-based holding company scooped up 1.91 billion dollars (over Rs 12,000 crores) across three rounds-starting with a 210 million dollars (Rs 1,328 crores) infusion in May, jumping to 1 billion dollars (over Rs 6,300 crores) in July and later 700 million dollars (over Rs 4,400 crores) in December.

All the three deals figured in the top-10 investments for 2014 and helped take the total funding raised by Flipkart to about 2.7 billion dollars (over Rs 17,000 crores). Apart from return backers-hedge fund Tiger Global, South African media firm Naspers and global multi-family office Iconiq Capital, new investors in India’s e-commerce included Singapore's GIC, Russia's DST Global, Qatar Investment Authority, hedge funds Steadview Capital and Greenoaks Capital and other traditionally public market- oriented investors like T. Rowe Price and Baillie Gifford.

Japan's SoftBank Corp led a 637 million dollars (over Rs 4,000 crores) round for Snapdeal to become the biggest investor in the company. In May 2014, Snapdeal had attracted 100 million dollars (over Rs 630 crores) including from new investors PremjiInvest, Singapore's Temasek, Blackrock, and hedge funds Tybourne and Myriad. This had followed a 134 million dollars (over Rs 845 crores) fund raising in February from the company's existing venture capital investors and strategic investor eBay.

eBay
Flipkart
Snapdeal