Recently the Indian e-commerce industry has been garnering much investor interest. Earlier Flipkart raised a billion dollars and Amazon announced $2 billion investment in India. And now Ratan Tata, the man who transformed India’s largest private sector conglomerate with a large numbe of global acquisitions, is reportedly considering an investment in the online marketplace, Snapdeal. 

The Economic Times reported on Wednesday that Ratan Tata is said to be exploring the investment in a personal capacity. There are speculations in the business world that the 76-year-old chairman eneritus of Tata Sons may buy out an early investor in Snapdeal through a secondary sale. The exact stake that Tata would hold in Snapdeal, if and when the deal is completed, remains undisclosed. This investment would create a great deal of buzz for Snapdeal.

People close to Snapdeal said that Tata had paid a visit to the companies HQ in Delhi and addressed the employees, a month ago.

Kunal Bahl, Founder of Snapdeal, has been reported as saying that he is being pursued by investors who want to be a part of the company. The four year old online marketplace, Snapdeal has crossed the $1 billion mark in gross merchandise sale by value and is fighting with the online retail giant, Amazon for the No. 2 position in the domestic market.

This investment from Tata would be testament to the increasing interest of well-established businesses in India’s e-commerce market, which according to the US venture capital fund Accel Partners, is expected to hit $9 billion mark within the next two years.

The company which started as daily deals platform in 2010, later was expanded to a e-commerce comapny via a marketplace model. Now with over 25 million registered users, Snapdeal sells about 5 million products across several categories like electronics, apparels, mobiles. Similar to Flipkart, Snapdeal generates 50% of its orders from mobile phone.

Source: ( Times of India )