Internet and mobile-based classifieds company Quikr Mauritius Holding Pvt Ltd, the parent company of Quikr India Pvt. Ltd which runs online classifieds site Quikr.com, has raised $150 million (over Rs 900 crore) from existing investors Tiger Global and Sweden's Kinnevik besides a new investor Steadview Capital Management, it said on Tuesday.
The venture essentially competes with Naspers-backed OLX in the P2P classifieds business in India.
This fresh round of funding will be used to further invest in Quikr’s fast growing mobile business and in its key categories such as cars, real estate, jobs and services.
“The big things for us going forward are to continue to innovate for India, innovate for mobile and go deeper in key categories where we already are leaders,†Pranay Chulet, founder and CEO of Quikr, said.
In a separate statement, Kinnevik said it has brought in $40 million in this round.
"We are pleased with the progress that Pranay and his team have achieved over the last 12 months, in particular with the success achieved by the recently launched instant messaging platform. We look forward to supporting the growth of Quikr as the leader in horizontal classifieds in the world's third-largest internet market," said Lorenzo Grabau, CEO of Kinnevik.
“Quikr has built its market-leading position by steadily innovating new features, such as messaging, which are rooted in its deep understanding of India as a market and mobile as a medium,†said Lee Fixel, partner, Tiger Global.
The latest funding comes barely seven months after it raised $60 million in a fresh round of funding led by Tiger Global with participation from its existing investors, including Matrix Partners India, Nokia Growth Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, Warburg Pincus and eBay Inc, besides Kinnevik.
Kinnevik had put in $15 million in that round and has been retaining its stake in the classifieds venture. The Swedish investment firm had pegged the fair value of Quikr at around $340 million (Rs 2,050 crore) post-money after the September funding transaction.
Founded in 2008 by Chulet and Jiby Thomas (who quit the firm later), 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 1,000 cities are using the site.
It recently announced the launch of a new classifieds website for real estate called quikrhomes.com to allow B2C as well as C2C discovery of properties up for sale as well as those available for rent.
For new investor Steadview Capital, this marks another large deal in India. Last year the Hong Kong-based alternative assets manager had backed marquee firms in the digital commerce space in India—e-com venture Flipkart and online cabs aggregator Ola.
Avendus Capital was the exclusive advisor to Quikr on this transaction.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
