Snapdeal may go public, hold talks with investment bankers

Bengaluru, 4 September Ecommerce firm Snapdeal may go public as the company has initiated discussions with three investment banking firms to explore the possibility of an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in coming days.

According to the sources in the know, investment banks including JM Financial and Axis Capital were consulted by the company to understand the nuances in this regard.

The e-tailer, founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in 2010, is backed by Japan's SoftBank Group and China's Alibaba.

After walking out of the merger deal with bigger rival Flipkart in 2017, the company has reduced its cash burn by largely focusing on selling unbranded products.

Though the etailer was valued at $6.5 billion during a secondary transaction in 2016, its merger talks with Flipkart were at a substantial reduced valuation of around $1 billion the next year.

Earlier, the company was in talks with its existing and new investors to raise around $100 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion in 2019.

If the IPO plans of Snapdeal become successful, the etailer will be in a position to win back the market share that it has lost over these years. Currently, the ecommerce market in India is dominated by Walmart-owned Flipkart and Amazon. As per the market research firm Statista, the ecommerce industry in India was around $50 billion in 2018, which is likely to be more than $200 billion by 2027.

After the successful listing of food delivery firm Zomato, a host of new age startups are planning to go public. Many startups including Paytm, Delhivery, Nykaa, and PolicyBazaar among others are planning to go public in coming months.

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