Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, which runs online marketplace Snapdeal, has closed its latest funding round worth $50 million (Rs 284 crore) which saw strategic investor eBay come in to pick a stake. Besides eBay and Japan’s Recruit Holdings, other new institutional investors who joined the funding round include Intel Capital, Russian venture fund ru-Net and Saama Capital, according to The Economic Times which quoted the firm’s co-founder Kunal Bahl.
For ru-Net this comes as yet another Indian exposure after it backed e-com sites Bestylish and Freecultr.
Separately, sources told Techcircle.in that other investors who participated in the latest round include Hans Tung, who set up Bessemer Venture Partner’s China investment practice and currently is managing partner of Beijing-based Qiming Venture Partners where he focuses on internet and consumer investments.
This investment round now values the firm at over Rs 1,000 crore. Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Indo-US Venture Partners (now known as Kalaari Capital) and Kenneth Glass have also participated in the funding round.
Techcircle.in had earlier reported that Junglee founders Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman were also part of the investors in Snapdeal.
An email sent to the Snapdeal spokesperson did not elicit any response on the details about the new investors, but sources said that in the first tranche of the funding round worth Rs 89 crore, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners and eBay led the funding with Rs 26 crore each. Recruit Holdings brought in around Rs 5.4 crore while Saama Capital brought in around Rs 2.7 crore in the first tranche.
With this latest round, total influx of capital in Snapdeal stands at about $103 million in four rounds. In July 2011, Snapdeal had raised $40 million in Series C funding, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, along with existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners. That investment happened barely six months after the company announced fundraising of $12 million from Nexus and Indo-US Venture Partners.
Other recent investments in ecommerce
A few days ago Myntra disclosed that last year it secured additional $25 million from existing investors, including Tiger Global and Accel Partners. This funding round was not formally announced previously and it took the total capital inflow in Myntra to $65 million.
Big Shoe Bazaar India Pvt Ltd, which runs fashion and lifestyle e-tail venture Yebhi.com, raised $12 million (Rs 65 crore) from its existing investors in a bridge round.
Gurgaon-based Clues Network Pvt Ltd, the startup that runs the horizontal e-commerce marketplace ShopClues.com, raised Series B funding of $10 million (Rs 54.1 crore) from Helion Venture Partners, Nexus Partners and Netprice.com, a Japanese business group based in Tokyo.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
