Snapdeal could soon become India's numero uno eCommerce player, beating Flipkart! It raked in a neat $3.5 bn in revenues in May 2015

Flipkart could soon have to vacate its position as India's numero uno eCommerce portal. Online marketplace Snapdeal has hit a sales run rate of $3.5 billion this month, known as gross merchandise value (GMV) in e-commerce parlance, bringing it closer to the scale of Flipkart, the country's largest e-tailer. A Snapdeal spokesperson told TOI that sales done by merchants on its platform had risen four times in the current month as compared to the same period last year, propelling the e-tailer's numbers.

Backed by Japan's SoftBank Corp, Snapdeal fights directly with Bengaluru-based Flipkart which is said to be currently clocking $4.5 billion in GMV (inclusive of Myntra) and Amazon which is closing in on the $2-billion mark. GMV is the overall sales done by merchants on an e-commerce platform, without factoring discounts, out of which the e-tailer gets between 5-20% as margin depending on the category which qualifies as its revenue according to The Economic Times.

While talking to TOI, Kunal Bahl, co-founder of the Delhi-based Snapdeal, said the e-tailer had been highly capital efficient while getting to this number having invested a fraction of the funds compared to other players. "Our focus on building apure-play marketplace versus an inventory-led or hybrid business models like others has played a key role in our rapid growth. Also the fact that we didn't always have access to easy capital, ensured that we built a capital efficient cul ure," he told ET.

Since 2011, when it pivoted rom being a daily deals site, Snapdeal has been operating as a marketplace. Snapdeal has raised $1.1 billion from more than a dozen investors ike eBay , BlackRock, Temasek among others, while Flipkart has amassed $2.5 billion since it started operations as an online book sellers in 2007.

Even as GMV numbers grow, ecommerce players have been beswith excessive cashburn in the range of $20-30 mil ion per month which has led to he need for constant capital in usion from investors. The bulk of the capital for both the ecommerce majors came last year amid a frenetic fund-raising environment which saw $4 billion flow into Indian consumer internet firms. "We've invested some of the funds on acquisitions, although these were done largely in stocks."

The acquisitions will materially enhance buying and selling experiences in our company's ecosystem going forward," Bahl told ET. Snapdeal bought online recharge platform FreeCharge last month for an estimated $400 million along with a string of other acquisitions, 10 in all. Valued at $5 billion, Snapdeal has been aggressively hiring leadership talent within the country and the US, the latest being Gaurav Gupta as VP-engineering, amid a handful of top-level exits from the company.