Exclusive: IPO-Bound Snapdeal Issues 394 Mn Bonus Equity Shares To 61 Shareholders

IPO-bound ecommerce platform Snapdeal has issued bonus equity shares to shareholders ahead of filing its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator SEBI. 

As per the regulatory filings accessed by Inc42, the New Delhi-based ecommerce platform is allotting around 394 Mn equity shares to 61 of its shareholders. The Kunal Bahl-led Snapdeal has allotted the bonus shares in the proportion of 159 new bonus equity shares of INR 1 for each equity shares of INR 1 (i.e., in the ratio of 159:1 share). 

As per the filings, the Starfish I Pte. Ltd, a subsidiary of Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank which owned around 8,79,253 equity shares has received the highest bonus equity shares of 139.8 Mn, thus taking its total equity shares of 140 Mn and making it the largest equity shareholders. SoftBank has poured in over $1 Bn in Snapdeal over the years. 

Other notable venture capital who have received the bonus equity shares are Nexus Partners, Intel Capital, OntarioTeachers’ Pension Plan, BlackRock, Sequoia among others. Well known angel investor Kunal Shah too has received 1.6 Mn equity bonus shares. Founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Kumar Bansal have received around 18 Mn and 11 Mn bonus equity shares respectively. 

Startups issuing bonus equity shares ahead of filings of DRHP has been a common norm for all the Indian startups that have gone for IPO. Based on the trend, it won’t be wrong to say that the startup will be filling its DRHP with SEBI within the next 10 days. 

The Alibaba-backed ecommerce platform is going for a $250 Mn IPO at a $1.5 Bn valuation. The startup is expected to list itself on the stock exchange in early 2022, based on SEBI’s approval. 

The development comes almost 45 days after Inc42 exclusively reported that Snapdeal has increased its ESOP pool by 151% to 5,00,000 options. 

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

Snapdeal claims to have customers across 6,000 towns in the country with over 500K sellers and 200 Mn products on its platform. 

Snapdeal competes against the likes of Walmart-backed Flipkart and US-ecommerce giant Amazon, among others.