Online classifieds venture Quikr raises $90 million in a round led by Kinnevik
Quikr, an online and mobile classifieds venture that was started by Pranay Chulet in July 2008- has announced a $90 million funding round from a group of investors led by Swedish investment firm Investment Kinnevik. ET reports that the investment round came in two parts, the first one being put in by existing investors Warburg Pincus in September last year.Quikr has raised close to $150 million till date in seven rounds over the last six years and claims to receive more than 30 million visitors each month. Quikr's closest competitor in India is Argentina based OLX which is also heavily venture backed and has been neck to neck with Quikr. This funding round will help Quikr push further and it confirms the logical path wherein five to six big consumer internet ventures will be backed and survive in the long run.
This is first direct investment in the country by Kinnevik which is a family-run listed investment company with a market value of $10.6 billion. Quikr has deep ties with eBay as well. Earlier known as Kijiji India, Quikr was a subsidiary of eBay which was spun off as an individual entity in 200 by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas. Jiby decided to move out of Quikr in 2012 (read their indepth story).
Quikr has had a phenomenal run over the years and keeps innovating to get more eyeballs like its recent launch of the 'Maximum Selling Price' campaign. Quikr is a 400+ (2013 figures when we conducted the Startup Jobs Fair) team across five cities and going strong. This fresh infusion of funds gives them more rocket fuel to scale.
