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Flipkart says it’s not looking for fresh funds
Flipkart chairman Sachin Bansal said the company is not looking at raising fresh funds. “We have enough funding to last us a long period of time,” he said on Wednesday.
Some are likely to interpret the statement as an acknowledgement of the troubles the e-commerce major is having in raising funds at desired valuations. Rival Amazon recently announced a fresh $3 billion investment in its India operations; it had in 2014 announced a $2 billion investment. The collective sum far exceeds the $3.2 billion that Flipkart has to date raised. Its last round was $700 million in July 2015.
Bansal also played down the markdowns of Flipkart’s share value by some mutual funds in recent months. “Along with us, many companies in the world went through markdowns. Uber too was marked down by mutual funds, but it raised money at a higher valuation than in previous rounds. I don’t think much about the markdowns. We should focus on execution, keep our heads down, focus on customers and things will happen,” he said.
Bansal, who was speaking to the media after an interaction with Karnataka industries minister RV Deshpande, acknowledged that some of the internet companies are going through a down cycle, but he said the down cycles won’t last for long, just as the positive cycles “don’t last forever”. “E-commerce is 2% of shopping in India. So we have a long way to go,” he said. Jabrill Peppers Jersey
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