In an ongoing saga of escalating woes, Snapdeal has once again incurred the ire of a fellow player in the startup ecosystem – this time, it is CouponDunia, a third-party vendor with Snapdeal.
The Times Internet-owned startup’s CEO and co-founder Sameer Parwani took to Twitter to express his ire against the beleaguered company’s payment practices, accusing it of being ‘months behind’ on the same.
Mumbai-based CouponDunia was founded by Sameer Parwani in 2010. It is now home for coupons from more than 2,000 online brands, 5,000 restaurants, and has around 7 Mn email subscribers. CouponDunia is present in about seven cities and was acquired by Times Internet in 2014 for an undisclosed amount. Post the deal, Times Internet merged Times Deals with CouponDunia. The company also runs CuponWorld in Brazil, KuponDunya in Turkey, KodyBony in Poland, and CouponDunia Indonesia.
In what began as a sarcastic comment, Parwani called out Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl on his personal handle to take some time off negotiating his $50 Mn payout and pay CouponDunia.
Hey @1kunalbahl I know you’re busy negotiating your $50M exit, but got time to clear our payments? You’re months behind. 1/3
— Sameer Parwani (@sparwani) April 11, 2017
His next tweet then mentioned fellow competitors Flipkart and Amazon, ‘who pay like clockwork’ and also criticised the company’s payment practices even when it ‘had $500 M+ in the bank.” “The way you treat vendors has always been poor,” Parwani stated.
.@1kunalbahl The way you treat vendors has always been poor. Even when SD had $500M+ in the bank you’d pay months late. FK & AZ pay like clockwork 2/3
— Sameer Parwani (@sparwani) April 11, 2017
Parwani then ended his Twitter rant with a hashtag #farewellkunal and expressed his sentiment for Flipkart being better managers and having principles and more respect for vendors.
.@1kunalbahl Looking forward to FK eventually installing their own management. They have principles and treat vendors with respect. #farewellkunal 3/3
— Sameer Parwani (@sparwani) April 11, 2017
When asked for official comment, regarding the current payment of dues, Snapdeal’s sources close to the development stated that: “The matter is being looked into and payment is being processed. The payment will be made by next week.”
An email sent to Parwani elicited no response at the time of publication.
Snapdeal, founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in 2012, has raised more than $1 Bn in funding over 12 rounds. The company spent about $30 Mn in a rebranding exercise before the 2016 festive season, which did not stanch the losses incurred. Recently, investor SoftBank also reached out to fellow competitor Flipkart to offload the company, wherein existing investors Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners are demanding $100 Mn each, and the founders stand to make about $50 Mn.
Lately, Snapdeal has also run into a spot of legal trouble – with third-party vendors raising concerns to the Ministry of Commerce and Nirmala Sitharaman regarding long-standing payment of dues. And as recently as last week, Dream Merchants Pvt. Ltd, a Bengaluru-based firm had filed a legal complaint against Kunal Bahl and other senior executives over non-payment of dues to the tune of $38.4K (INR 25 Lakhs).
(This development was reported by OfficeChai.)
