India’s leading e-Commerce marketplace Flipkart on Tuesday announced a fund infusion of $1.2 billion, at a valuation of $24.9 billion, led by its parent company Walmart.
According to reports, this marks Walmart‘s largest-ever investment into the online marketplace since its acquisition in 2018.
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In a press statement, Flipkart said the latest fund infusion from Walmart is to support the continued development of its e-commerce marketplace as the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The investment also includes the participation of other existing shareholders, but their identity was not disclosed.
According to the e-commerce giant, the equity infusion of $1.2 billion will be funded in two tranches over the remainder of the fiscal year.
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Also read: Walmart and Flipkart commits Rs 46 crore to help India in its fight against COVID-19
The world’s largest retailer Walmart had announced the acquisition of Flipkart in May 2018 in a transaction valued at $16 billion, making it one of the largest transactions for the Indian startup ecosystem.
The latest equity fund infusion is on a similar scale when Flipkart, prior to its acquisition by Walmart, had received from a clutch of investors like SoftBank, Tencent, Microsoft, and eBay, which cumulatively exceeded $2 billion.
Following the acquisition by Walmart, SoftBank completely exited from Flipkart, while other investors like Tiger Global made only a partial exit.
According to Flipkart, it has recently surpassed 1.5 billion visits per month and reported 45 per cent growth in monthly active customers, and 30 percent growth in transactions per customer for FY20.
Today, Flipkart Group has over 200 million registered customers with over 150 million products, spanning across 80-plus categories.
Besides, it also has other specialty businesses like Myntra (the fashion and apparel marketplace), PhonePe (the digital payments platform), and eKart (a logistics and delivery service business).
Recently, PhonePe reported an annualized total payments value (TPV) of $180 billion on more than 500 million monthly transactions.
According to the Flipkart CEO, the online marketplace is the leader in electronics and fashion categories of e-commerce, and is also accelerating its share in general merchandise and grocery.