Classifieds site Quikr, which raised $60 million in fresh funding led by Tiger Global last month, was valued at around $340 million (Rs 2,050 crore) post-money, according to the fair value disclosure of holdings by its Swedish investor Investment AB Kinnevik.
The valuation is based on cost of investment, Kinnevik said.
Kinnevik had also participated in the latest round with an infusion of $15 million which also saw participation from other existing investors including Matrix Partners India, Nokia Growth Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, Warburg Pincus and eBay Inc.
With the September deal, the total capital raised by Quikr stood at around $200 million. The latest round came just five months after the firm announced a $90 million funding round led by Kinnevik. The Swedish investor had previously disclosed the last funding round put a fair value of its ownership in Quikr valuing the Indian classifieds site at around $240 million.
Kinnevik maintained its holding at 16 per cent with the latest funding and put the fair value of its stake at around $54 million.
When contacted, Pranay Chulet, founder and CEO of Quikr, said, “Our valuation was much higher than what you have just quoted, even in our previous fundraising of $90 million in March this year. Anyway, we are now significantly higher than that. The data points that you are using to reach this number are not enough to calculate our actual valuation.â€
Indeed, valuations of new gen technology companies are changing every month; so the current valuation of Quikr could easily be higher.
Founded in 2008 by Chulet and Jiby Thomas, Quikr was originally started as Kijiji India. The firm later rebranded to Quikr. It is a large scale cross-category classifieds business with over 30 million consumers. These consumers come to Quikr to sell, buy, rent or find products and services in a variety of categories such as electronics and household goods, real estate, cars, bikes, jobs and services. The firm claims that small businesses across 940 cities are using the site.
In July last year, its co-founder Thomas quit the firm to launch a digital marketing company called Web Butter Jam.
Early this month, Quikr claimed that it was facilitating over 750,000 transactions on a monthly basis with a transaction value as represented by gross merchandise value (GMV) of over $2.5 billion. In addition, it is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 527 per cent.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
