Anand Piramal, executive director of the Piramal Group, has invested an undisclosed amount of funding in Snapdeal, and thus joining the league of high net worth individuals like Ratan Tata to do so.
This is the first investment in Snapdeal two years after it rejected its rival Flipkart's offer for an acquisition, and decided to go solo.
“Snapdeal’s sharp execution in bringing great selection to the mass market segment in tier 2-3 cities has been quite successful, leveraging the growing internet penetration in these geographies. The company's mission of enabling the success of hundreds of thousands of small businesses in India through its marketplace is commendable," said Piramal.
"Since 2017, Snapdeal’s revenues have grown rapidly with profitable unit economics. With hundreds of millions of first time e-commerce buyers yet to transact, Snapdeal is well poised to grow in the future," he added.
Earlier this month, the company reported a sharp decline in its losses at Rs 186 crore for the financial year ending March 2019, as against a Rs 611 crore loss reported during the previous financial year.
The company's consolidated revenue also increased by 73 percent to Rs 925 crore during the period under review, as against Rs 535 crore earned in the previous fiscal
The company claims that over 80 percent of its users come from small towns and cities of India. In the last two years, it also claims to have added 60,000 new seller partners to take the total number to 500,000 registered sellers.
"Anand's investment comes as a significant endorsement for Snapdeal and the transformation the company has undergone over the last couple of years. His appreciation for what it takes to build a company with growing revenues with good economics in a competitive market comes from his own experiences of building and operating large companies in competitive sectors like real estate and financial services," said Kunal Bahl, chief executive officer and co-founder of Snapdeal.
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