Exclusive: IPO-Bound Snapdeal To Add Anisha Motwani, Ullas Kamath As Independent Directors

Ahead of its initial public offering (IPO), Delhi NCR based ecommerce marketplace, Snapdeal has appointed two new independent directors to its board. The startup has appointed Ullas Kasaragod Kamath, joint managing director, Jyothy Labs (the manufacturer of popular cloth whitener Ujjala) and Anisha Motwani, founder and director, StormtheNorm Ventures. 

Kamath holds the director role in V Guard Industries. He is also an individual partner at a Bengaluru-based startup accelerator InnovationQore which runs its cohort programme under the name of Turbostart.

Kamath is a chartered accountant who holds a law degree and has attended the advanced management programme at Wharton Business School and Harvard Business School. Kamath had spearheaded the setting up of Fabric Spa and the Henkel acquisition for INR 118.72 Cr in 2011. 

On the other hand, Motwani serves as an independent director at several companies such as Abbot India, Welspun India, L&T Investment, Angel Broking Network, Star Health Insurance, and Somany Home Innovation. Motwani holds an MBA degree and has studied at Sophia College. She is also an advisor with the World Bank on the ‘Swacch Bharat Programme’. In 2015, she founded StormtheNorm Ventures which specialises in brand, digital, and innovation projects.

Snapdeal has earlier also roped in Richa Arora, managing partner and CEO, ESG Stewardship Services at ECube Investment Advisors. Arora is also on board of Tata Group’s ecommerce venture.

Inc42 had earlier exclusively reported that the ecommerce platform had roped in Kaushik Dutta (Director, Thought Arbitrage Research Institute) as an independent director. 

According to recent reports, Snapdeal is considering an IPO next year for raising $400 Mn at a valuation of $2.5 Bn. Delhi NCR-based ecommerce marketplace has reportedly appointed Bank of America, Axis Bank and JM Financial for the listing.

Inc42 last month (Sept 28) had exclusively reported that the startup was increasing its authorised share capital by 12.8 times from INR 16.08 Cr to INR 206.8 Cr – a move done by most of the companies who are planning to go for IPO. 

Earlier this week, Inc42 reported about Snapdeal increasing ESOP pool by 151% from 1,98,890 to 5,00,000 options. 

Founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in 2010, Snapdeal has raised over $1.5 Bn from investors such as SoftBank, Foxconn Technology Group, Alibaba Group, and Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. 

It competes against the likes of Amazon and Flipkart; and claims to have customers across 6,000 towns, 500K sellers and 200 Mn products on its platform. 

The company has posted consolidated revenue of INR 916 Cr in FY20. The company’s loss increased to INR 274 Cr in FY20 from INR 186 Cr in FY19. 

According to Inc42 Plus, India’s ecommerce market is expected to cross over $200 Bn by 2026.