Quikr Valuation Back Over $1 Bn Thanks To Offline Play In Smaller Towns

SUMMARY

Swedish investment group AB Kinnevik holds a 17% stake in Quikr

In Q2, Kinnevik had valued its stake at SEK 1.54 Bn, which had brought down the startup’s valuation

According to reports, Quikr is looking to go public by 2021

Bengaluru-based online classifieds marketplace Quikr is well on its way to a public listing in 2021 and seems to have gained back investor confidence in the business model. Swedish investor AB Kinnevik, a key shareholder in Quikr has revalued its stake for the quarter ending September 30, 2019.

In its interim Q3 2019 report, Kinnevik, which holds a 17% stake in Quikr, said that fair value of its stake is SEK 1.7 Bn ($177.02 Mn) for the quarter ended September 2019 (Q3FY19). This brings the valuation of the Pranay Chulet-led company to $1.04 Bn.

Notably, in Q2, Kinnevik had valued its stake at SEK 1.54 Bn ($156.7 Mn), which valued the company at around $921 Mn.

Quikr was founded in 2008 by Chulet as a classifieds website. Since then, the company has extended its verticals slowly and steadily. With 20 Mn monthly unique visitors, it is currently present in 1,200 cities in India. Quikr has spread its verticals across diverse domains like grocery, home rentals, beauty services as well as online recruitment.

The Kinnevik Q3 report also said that for the first half of 2019 (H1 2019), Quikr generated around $65 Mn in annualised cash revenue at a year-on-year growth rate of just under 60%. It said that over half of Quikr’s revenue is now generated from commissions on transactions on its platform, rather than traditional classifieds listing fees.

Kinnevik report also said that the company has extended its transactional offering into new business lines, including its offline network of used goods franchisee stores in smaller towns, and a staffing model within jobs.

So far, the company has raised $352.8 Mn in funding from investors such as Tiger Global, Kinnevik, Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, eBay, and NGP Capital (previously Nokia Growth Partners).

Chulet recently said that Quikr is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) — the company hasn’t yet decided on its country of listing i.e India or the US. Quikr has been following an acquisition-led strategy to enhance its growth and has acquired over 15 startups, the latest being Bengaluru-based used goods marketplace Zefo, for INR 200 Cr ($28.51 Mn).

Quikr currently competes with other major players such as 99acres.com, Housing.com, Proptiger.com, Square Yards, OLX, among others. A Zinnov report had stated that online resellers space has been predicted to grow to $48 Bn-$60 Bn by 2022.