Indiaplaza.com scouts for investor to bounce back

One among the early entrants in India’s e-commerce space,

Indiaplaza.com is going through tough times and is looking for fresh investments to get rid of the debt pressure and bounce back. The company, like many other e-tailing firms works on credit with sellers and keeping the current crisis situation in mind, it is negotiating with them to settle dues at 50 percent of the total value. It has also asked sellers to provide a No Due Certificate to the company.

The company had undertaken a similar exercise a few years back, when an investor finally underwrote all seller liabilities of the company. As per the Alexa rankings, the traffic on Indiaplaza.com has fallen dramatically in last six months. Industry sources say, Indiaplaza.com has already succeeded in raising the required capital to clear existing dues and is looking at making a fresh start.

In April 2011, it had raised five million dollars (Rs 27 crores) in funding through a fresh issue of equity, from NEA – IndoUS Venture Partners. Vaitheeswaran founded the company, at that time it was known as Fabmart.com. In 2002, the name was changed to Fabmall, which had two business formats i.e. an online platform and an offline chain of grocery stores. In 2006, the Aditya Birla Group acquired the Fabmall chain, known as the More chain of stores. After this the name was changed to Indiaplaza.com.

In January 2007, Fabmall.com acquired US-based Indiaplaza.com and created India-centric online shopping company with two distinct websites, Indiaplaza.com to serve customers in the US, and Indiaplaza.in to serve customers in India. In February 2011, the company merged both websites into a common single entity called Indiaplaza.com.