Quikr raises venture debt of Rs 55 Cr led by InnoVen Capital

The funds will be used to scale transaction businesses across Quikr verticals. Founded by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008, it competes with Argentina-based OLX. 

Online classifieds marketplace Quikr has raised a debt funding of Rs 55 crore (approximately $7.76 million) led by InnoVen Capital. The platform helps users buy, rent, sell anything across India.

The company has raised close to $400 million in equity funding and has made over 13 acquisitions, including Babajob, StayGlad, CommonFloor, Stepni, and a few others. Media reports have quoted co-founder Pranay Chulet saying that half of the company's revenues are generated from the companies it has acquired.

The funds will be used to scale transaction businesses across Quikr verticals. Founded by Pranay and Jiby Thomas in 2008, Quikr competes with Argentina-based OLX.

In a press statement, Ashish Sharma, CEO, InnoVen Capital, said,

“Pranay and the Quikr team have built some market-leading vertical platforms, all of which have a significant runway for growth. Quikr has showcased strong momentum, with improving unit economics and is positioned well to harness the benefits of scale and large customer base.”

Some of the marquee investors in Quikr include Tiger Global, Kinnevik, Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, eBay, Nokia Growth Partners, and others. The company claims to have 30 million monthly unique visitors and continues to focus on cross-selling in the verticals of education, services, jobs, goods sectors and real estate.

Commenting on the venture debt raise, Rahul Tewari, CFO of Quikr, said, “With a 95-percent revenue growth in FY18 and continued momentum in the first two-quarters of FY19, each of our verticals is strengthening by the day. As a business, we continuously look to optimise our capital structure and saw a very good fit in venture debt to support the growth of our transaction businesses. We are happy to partner with Innoven to further accelerate our growth.”

InnoVen Capital has also funded unicorns like OYO Rooms, Swiggy and Byju’s.

Several reports suggest that the company currently is in talks to raise funding of $150 million at a valuation of $1.6 billion. Other reports also stated that Quikr dropped from its unicorn status to $885 million. However, the latest statement from the company stated that it continues to hold its valuation of $1.6 billion.