Recap 2015: Snapdeal all charged up!

Fresh infusion of funds from a clutch of global investors including Alibaba, Foxconn and Softbank helped it close the ranks with the likes of Flipkart and Amazon.

If 2014 was the year that witnessed investors flocking around Flipkart, 2015 clearly belonged to its lesser rival Snapdeal. The Jasper Infotech-owned e-marketplace saw heightened investment interest from Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese companies alike.

Alibaba, Foxconn and Softbank led an investment round in August that helped Snapdeal raise USD 500 million, with existing investors Temasek, BlackRock, Myriad and Premji Invest also participating. This took the cumulative funding for Snapdeal to USD 1 billion that also included an investment earlier from Ratan Tata in his personal capacity.

The August 2015 round of funding came in just about four months after Snapdeal acquired mobile recharge platform Freecharge in a deal that was widely speculated to be at around USD 400 million and the largest thus far involving an Indian start-up. In 2014, Flipkart had acquired Myntra for USD 300 million.

Snapdeal in February also acquired the premium and luxury fashion e-retailer Exclusively.in, adding to its earlier acquisitions of Doozton and Wishpicker done in 2014.

Snapdeal also bolstered its management line-up during the year, notably roping in some senior executives from telecom companies. Bharti Airtel’s chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran who had quit the telco in May, joined Snapdeal in a similar role a month later. Another Airtel executive Govind Rajan, who last served there as chief marketing officer (B2C), joined Snapdeal as its chief strategy officer in July. Later, in October, the e-marketplace major also roped in as chief financial officer Anup Vikal, who was serving at Aircel in the same role.

The acquisitions, supported by the last round of investments and strengthening of the management team, have positioned Snapdeal well to take on the competition and challenge its bigger rivals.

Also Read: Movers & Shakers of Telecom in 2015