Corporate Czar Ratan Tata Bets Big On India's E-Commerce Firms

BANGALORE: What made the biggest tycoon like Ratan Tata invest his personal money on online sectors? Not one, not two, its three e-com sectors where Tata has bet his valuable money, namely Urban Ladder, Snapdeal and Bluestone. Already the e-com business are rapidly prevailing and thus one can assume the potential future of e-com, how big it’s going to boom in future.

These online companies in which Tata has invested have tasted success in their very early years. In fact their revenue has grown 4-5 times in a year. Bluestone, a multi-national financial services company has grown up to 4 times to 17 crore in FY 14 from a little of 4 crores. On the other hand Snapdeal is bragging about its whooping growth of 168 crore in FY14 and recently raised $650 million from Japan’s SoftBank giving stiff competition to the big e-com players like Flipkart and Amazon. The Urban Ladder, an online marketplace for furniture in Bangalore, has reached to great heights this year after it got funding from Tata which was 2.5 crore in FY13.

According to Arvind Singhal, Technopak, a retail advisory firm, “Niche segments mean the scale and market size is limited but Snapdeal is certainly not niche, which is the case with the other two investments of Tata. Tata coming on board adds to the credibility but that alone cannot turn into profits,’’ reports Business Standard.

It is expected that 100 million users would shop online in India by 2016, taking the e-commerce sector to $15 billion in two years.

Read More: 10 Cities With The Most Business Opportunities and U.S. Investors Take A Leap Of Faith In Indian Economy