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CCI Approves SoftBank Investment In Flipkart And Alibaba’s Investment In BigBasket

Published

9 years ago

December 15, 2017

Alibaba, the China based ecommerce giant, along with Japan based venture capital firm SoftBank, have received the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) approval to purchase a minority shareholding in BigBasket and Flipkart, respectively. This nod of approval comes merely a month after the Jack Ma led Alibaba sought permission from the CCI.

According to reports, the development comes in favour of BigBasket, with Alibaba planning on acquiring 35% – 40% stake in the online grocery platform. The Jack Ma owned ecommerce platform wants to invest $ 300 million in the food delivery platform.

As per reports, once the deal goes through, BigBasket’s post money valuation will stand at $ 850 million! Further, the transaction will involve an initial round of investment at $ 220 million, while $ 80 million will be used to acquire shares from existing shareholders. Co founders of BigBasket, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Chaudhary and V.S. Sudhakar are going to sell portions of their shares as well.

According to further reports, CCI also approved SoftBank’s investment in Flipkart. About $ 1 billion of Flipkart’s $ 2.5 billion war chest is going to come from the secondary purchase of shares from initial angel investors, Tiger Global and Accel. SoftBank is also going to invest in cab aggregator Ola and online payments enabler, Paytm.

Alibaba’s backing to BigBasket will also give the online grocery platform the much needed edge it needs to fight rival platform, Amazon. Apart from the $ 300 million BigBasket gets from Alibaba, it also raised $ 28o million in a series E round funding from existing investors, Sands Capital and Dubai based company, Abraaj Group.

These investments help in giving these homegrown platforms a big edge over existing competition. With opportunities like this, platforms like Flipkart and BigBasket get the push they need to do new and innovative things with their business every day. The CCI approval comes as a confirmation of just this fact and proves beyond doubt that these ecommerce websites are ready to take on the world.