US retail corporation Walmart is reportedly acquiring a 77 per cent stake in e-commerce marketplace Flipkart in a $16bn deal.
The investment will see SoftBank sell its 20 per cent share in Flipkart, according to a report by Reuters. SoftBank initially invested $2.5bn into Flipkart last year, but the article reports the firm’s CEO Masayoshi Son stated its investment was worth around $4bn.
Earlier in the year, it was reported Walmart was close to a $12bn for a stake between 60 and 80 per cent into Flipkart. The deal was expected to see both Tiger Global Management and Soft Bank sell its share in the company.
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 $1.4bn investment from Tencent. The company’s total funding efforts have reached around $6.7bn.
This is the fifth FinTech deal to close this month in India, with the most recent being Deutsche Bank’s acquisition of banking solution developer Quantiguous Solutions. Other companies to close deals this month include online lending platform OYE! Fintech, InsurTech business Policybazaar and online investment solution SAMCO Ventures.
India’s FinTech space was dominated by the payments and remittances space last year, receiving 84 per cent of the $7.3bn deployed in the country, according to data by FinTech Global.
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