US retail corporation Walmart is reportedly nearing a $12bn deal to buy a majority stake in e-commerce marketplace Flipkart.
All major investors in Flipkart are onboard with the offer, following initial interest from Amazon, according to a report by Bloomberg which cites people familiar with the matter.
This investment will see Tiger Global Management sell most of its 20 per cent holding, and SoftBank will also sell a considerable amount of its 20 per cent share, it said. Wallmart will acquire around a 60 to 80 per cent stake in Flipkart, which is valued at $20bn.
Founded in 2007, Flipkart is an online shopping platform which offers over 80 million products across more than 80 categories. The company has around 100 million registered users and 100,000 sellers, according to the company website.
Flipkart received two substantial investments last year, having bagged around $161m across two credit lines from Axis Bank. The company also secured a $2.5bn capital injection from SoftBank Vision Fund and a $1.4bn investment from Tencent. The company’s total funding efforts have reached around $6.7bn.
There has been a lot of recent activity in the Indian FinTech space. Earlier in the week, healthcare-focused savings platform Affordplan netted $10m in its Series B led by Lok Capital.
India’s FinTech sector has seen a huge rise in funding, with last year pulling in $5.3bn more than 2016, according to data by FinTech Global. The new funding high was largely due to the both of Flipkart’s colossal funding. One97 Communications was the only other company to raise over $1bn, closing a $1.4bn investment.
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