Online retail giant Amazon has made its first investment in India by putting in $10 Mn in Bangalore-based gift card technology and retail startup QwikCilver Solutions.
The rumors of this possible funding were in news since past weeks. QwikCilver’s existing investors Helion Venture Partners and Accel Partners also participated in this round of funding.
Amazon Asia Pacific, an entity based out of Singapore has picked up a minority stake in the startup. However, the percentage of stake that Amazon has picked up through this investment cannot be asserted at the moment.
Kumar Sudarsan, founder and director of QwikCilver said, “The motivation to get Amazon on board was that they will be able to bring in best practices and global strategies to help us scale the sector to the next level.”
QwikCilver plans to use the funds raised for offering mobile solutions for gifting. Further, the startup is also considering bringing out a single company branded gift card which could be used by consumers across its client base. “We, in fact, have RBI approval to be a prepaid issuer, and very soon we will announce some unique solutions around this,” Kumar said.
QwikCilver currently has annualized sales run-rate of INR 1,000 Cr., with a client base of more than 100 retailers.
Currently, the gift-card market in India is estimated at $500 Mn.
QwikCilver was founded in 2008 by Kumar Sudarsan, TP Pratap and Bhaskar Vasudevan, all three alumni of BITS-Pilani.
