FlipKart, which was recently in news for raising $150 million from MIH (part of Naspers Group) and Iconiq Capital, Tiger Global, has now registered two companies with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, India with the names FLIPKART MARKETPLACE PRIVATE LIMITED (FMPL) and FLIPKART PAYMENT GATEWAY SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED (FPGSPL), as pointed out in a discussion thread on Pluggd.in forum. According to Trak.in, both these companies have been approved by MCA. FMPL was approved on 12th September 2012 and FPGSPL on 31st August 2012.

With FLIPKART MARKETPLACE PRIVATE LIMITED, the company might be planning to enter the online marketplace business where retailers and brands can come and create their own ecommerce stores. FlipKart’s closest competitor SnapDeal had recently launched Brand Stores SellonSnapdeal.com allowing brands to create their own store on the website. The company has already tied up with brands like Micromax, W and Slazenger to launch their brand stores on SnapDeal.com.

MIH–backed ecommerce firm Tradus.com had also launched seller Storefronts to allow wholesalers and distributors from nooks and corners of the country to sell directly to consumers all over India. InfiBeam already has a service called BuildaBazar which allows brands and products to create their own ecommerce stores.

FLIPKART PAYMENT GATEWAY SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED is probably a logical extension to having a marketplace as the company will need a gateway on their own as well. However, it also needs to be seen whether Flipkart will offer Payment Gateway services to merchants who will not be part of their platform. Trak.in report points out that Flipkart has already registered the domain Flipkartpayments.com, which is SSL enabled.