Flipkart to raise $150 Million, Valued at $1 Billion
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Flipkart to raise $150 Million, Valued at $1 Billion
Bangalore: Bangalore-based Flipkart Online Services is planning to raise $150 million in a PE round of funding from the PE firm General Atlantic Partners. The deal values Flipkart at $1 billion, reports VCCircle. Founded in 2007 by two IIT graduates, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Flipkart was launched as an online book store for India. Started with just five people, it grew within two years, cracked the top 100 Indian sites and was credited for being India's largest online bookseller with over 10 million titles on offer. Today they have ventured into mobile phones, gaming consoles, electronics, music and movies as well and have increased their workforce to more than 1,500 employees catering over a million customers. It has offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. Last December, it acquired social book discovery tool weRead.com from Lulu Enterprises, a U.S.-based on-demand publishing firm. The deal facilitates India to join big giants like the U.S. and China who has billion-dollar valued internet firms. General Atlantic has earlier this year bought 0.1 percent stake in Facebook in a deal that valued the social networking website at $65 billion. Flipkart has recently raised $20 million from Tiger Global. Currently they are transacting $6 million per month.

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