Big Shoe Bazaar raises $18M in Series C funding led by Fidelity, Qualcomm Ventures

Big Shoe Bazaar India Pvt Ltd, the company behind the e-commerce site Yebhi.com, has raised Rs 100 crore ($18 million) in Series C funding, led by Fidelity Growth Partners India and Qualcomm Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of Qualcomm Inc. Existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Catamaran also participated in the round.

Yebhi.com is an e-com site offering products across categories like home, lifestyle & fashion and electronics. The site claims to offer more than 400 leading brands including Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Puma, Reebok, Woodland, Benetton, Levi’s and Guess, among others.

In 2010, the company had received Rs 10 crore in Series A funding from Nexus Venture Partners. This was followed by a second round of funding of Rs 40 crore last year, led by Catamaran Ventures – the private investment arm of Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.

Manmohan Agarwal, CEO of Big Shoe Bazaar, said, “Big Shoe Bazaar’s fulfilment centre, supply chain and logistics network are key to supporting Yebhi.com’s customer connect. Our Series C round of investment will further strengthen these core initiatives.”

In an earlier interview with Techcircle.in, Agarwal had said that the next round of funding would be used for building a strong back-end and supply chain technology. “We would also like to invest a bit for building the organisation, marketing and hiring talents. Right now, Yebhi has a 1,300-strong workforce and we intend to take it to 2,500-3,000 by the end of 2012,” he said in April this year.

He had also added that the company would be looking at acquisitions of smaller companies. Subsequently, the firm had gone ahead and acquired StylishYou.in, a fashion jewellery e-tailer.

“Big Shoe Bazaar is positioned and equipped to support the needs of mass market e-commerce sites like Yebhi.com. We believe that Big Shoe Bazaar’s strengths are unparalleled at the backend,” said Raul Rai, MD of Fidelity Growth Partners (India).

“The number of mobile Internet users has already surpassed those who use PCs, creating a growing opportunity to reach mobile-connected consumers and provide them with unique shopping experiences. Our investment in Big Shoe Bazaar has come at a time when the rapid rise of smartphones, Tablets and social media networks stands to greatly influence the way people engage in online shopping,” said Karthee Madasamy, senior director of Qualcomm Ventures in India and Israel.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)