Online marketplace Snapdeal is reportedly close to raising $600 million to $650 million from existing investors to expand its operations, reports Livemint. The new funding round is being led by Japan’s SoftBank Corp.

People close to the development told Livemint that the amount, set to be the biggest investment in India’s growing e-commerce sector after Flipkart raised $1 billion in July, is likely to be announced next week.

Indian online retailers have been raising funds to expand and compete with bigger rival Amazon.com Inc. as more Indians shop on the internet.

Analysts at Nomura estimated in a research note in July that India’s e-commerce industry could quadruple to $43 billion over the next five years from $10 billion in 2013, driven by online retail.

Besides SoftBank, Snapdeal’s other investors include eBay Inc., Temasek Holdings Pvt. Ltd and Ratan Tata, the former chairman of the Tata conglomerate.

In February, Snapdeal had raised about Rs 830 crore in a round led by eBay. Then in May, Snapdeal had raised $100 million from a group of five investors including Azim Premji's Premji Invest, Temasek, BlackRock, Hong Kong based Myriad and hedge fund Tybourne. During that time, the company was valued at $1 billion.