At a time when Indian ecommerce scenario is undergoing turmoil, Flipkart has taken over the rein of the market by becoming the third most funded private company in the world. Japan’s telecom giant SoftBank has funded 2.4 billion USD recently and this has certainly established Flipkart in the new position.
Till date, Flipkart has raised almost 7 Billion USD in capital. This is much higher than Airbnb ($3.3 Bn) and Xiaomi ($1.4 Bn).
Flipkart having achieved this feat is now trailing behind China’s Didi Chuxing and Uber in the USA, both of which are cab hailing services. Didi Chuxing has raised 5 Bn USD and increased its total fund to $15 Bn in April. In the top 10 list of privately funded companies of the world, India’s Ola is also there.
The Flipkart funding reaffirms the faith of global players like SoftBank, Tiger Global, eBay , and Microsoft in Indian companies, according to a report in The Economic Times.
"Since Flipkart has been the flag-bearer for the local ecosystem, this reinforces the positive belief around the long-term India opportunity," Nitin Sharma, principal and founding member at early-stage VC fund Lightbox told ET. The VC ecosystem, he said, eventually needs to show a large-value creation event, and seeing SoftBank, Tencent and others go long should allay some of the concerns that had been dampening the sentiment locally and giving global investors some pause.
