Snapdeal To Raise About $300 Mn For FreeCharge: Report

Jasper Infotech, which owns ecommerce platform Snapdeal, is in talks with existing and new investors to raise about $300 Mn (INR 2000 Cr) for its digital services platform, FreeCharge, reports ET. However, Snapdeal declined to comment on what it called ‘speculation’.

Earlier this year, Freecharge was acquired by Snapdeal for over $450 Mn, making it one of the biggest transactions in the Indian startup space.

The development comes in less than three months after Snapdeal raised about $500 Mn from Alibaba, Foxconn and SoftBank.

Founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, FreeCharge, after merging with Snapdeal launched a common account and common wallet service namely ‘Freecharge Wallet’. Currently, it has about 8.2 Mn unique daily users, 20 Mn stored cards and a combined GMV value of over $4 Bn.

The acquisition of Freecharge was part of Jasper’s ambition to take over a market of holistic ecosystem of goods and services, keeping it ahead of rivals like, Flipkart, currently the largest ecommerce company in the country, and Amazon.

Retrospecting the previous developments, Flipkart left its other competitors behind with its ‘Big Billion Day’ sale.

Sole funding for FreeCharge is expected to aid Snapdeal to encounter Paytm, which recently raised about $680 Mn from Alibaba and its affiliate and is steadily venturing into different avenues, including building a swift online marketplace. It is one of the 11 entities to receive an RBI license to start a payment bank.

Freecharge’s present investors, including Sequoia Capital, Valiant Capital and Tybourne Capital, ru-Net and Sofina, will continue to hold Snapdeal stock thereby ensuring that the new funding round is not expected to have any secondary components.

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