Breaking: Snapdeal raises undisclosed amount of funding from Ratan Tata

Following the announcement of Snapdeal’s partnership with Tata Value Homes yesterday, the Delhi-based company announced today that Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons, has made an undisclosed amount of funding as a personal investment.

This investment by Tata, a renowned name in Indian as well as global business circles, is of great significance to the company and stands testimony to the growth and success of Snapdeal in a short span of four years.

Earlier in February this year, Snapdeal had raised $133 million led by eBay which has previously invested $50 million. This round also had other investors which included Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Saama Capital participating in the round.

Going forward, the online marketplace secured $ 100 million from funds managed by Premji Invest (the family office of Wipro chief Azim Premji), Temasek, BlackRock Inc., Myriad, and Tybourne in May this year.

The fresh investment will also put Snapdeal in a comfortable position to counter its competitor Flipkart and Amazon. While Flipkart raised $ 1 billion, Amazon pumped up $ 2 billion fund for its Indian arm.

Speaking about the fresh round of funding, Kunal Bahl, Co-founder & CEO of Snapdeal.com, said, “This is a very proud and exciting moment for the entire Snapdeal family. An investment by a legendary and respected figure like Mr. Tata is an excellent validation of our focused strategy on building a long term enterprise and marks the start of a very important phase for the company.”

Snapdeal has seen 600% growth year-on-year for the last two years and currently houses over 5 million products across 500 plus diverse categories from over 50,000 sellers.

So far, August has been a productive month for Snapdeal as the company has forayed into three categories, including partnership with Tata Value Homes,  and launched CapitalAssist to meet seller’s growing working capital requirement as they scale their businesses. It also announced its entry into the hospitality segment with 50,000 products.