Japanese telecommunications SoftBank Corp., owned by billionaire Masayoshi Son, will invest $627 million in Indian e-ecommerce retailer Snapdeal.com. This is the largest single-tranche investments by a single entity in an Indian e-commerce company.
Snapdeal which has been in an online war with Amazon and Flipkart has raised over $1 billion this year. The four year old company founded by Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal has been valued at over $2 billion. Snapdeal has about 50,000 sellers and offers a wide range of goods, from clothing, shoes, accessories, toys and more.
In a statement, Bahl said, "With the support of Son and Arora, we are confident we will further strengthen our promise to consumers and create life-changing experiences for one million small businesses in India."
Apart from Snapdeal, Softbank is also investing $210 million into taxi app Ola cabs. Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder & CEO, Ola said, "Softbank brings in a lot of relevant experience and knowledge of this domain."
SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son stated that he is prepared to invest up to $10 billion in India over the next ten years, depending on the opportunities available. “We believe India is at a turning point in its development and have confidence that India will grow strongly over the next decade. As part of this belief, we intend to deploy significant capital in India over the next few years to support development of the market,” Son added.
India’s biggest e-commerce companies have been on a fundraising spree this year. Flipkart.com raised $1 billion from existing investors Tiger Global Management LLC and South Africa’s Naspers Ltd. while Amazon.com Inc. stated that it plans to spend $2 billion in India.