Flipkart, India’s largest ecommerce site, reportedly infused another $ 257.3 million in its logistics services arm eKart. According to filings with Registrar of Companies, Flipkart raised this sum in multiple tranches between October and November last year. eKart is operated by Instakart Services Pvt., Ltd.
VCCircle reported the ecommerce firm raised close to $ 51.56 million in October last year. The company further raised the bulk of the investment amounting to $206.6 million in November 2017, in two tranches. The filings also revealed, eKart raised this capital by allocating equity shares worth Rs. 62.51 apiece to its Singapore based group firm Klick2Shop Logistics International Pvt., Ltd. Lick2Shop Logistics controls Instakart and is considered to be a subsidiary of Flipkart Pvt., Ltd.
In October last year, reports suggested eKart had earmarked $ 460.7 million in the form of a strategic reserve pool. In the RoC filings, the company said,“Considering the future requirements of the company whereby it may have to make strategic investments in other business/acquire companies for inorganic growth, extend loans and/ or guarantee to other corporates or provide security in connection with loans availed by other corporate. It is proposed to fix the limits at Rs. 3, 000 crores.”
2017 was undoubtedly a good year for the homegrown online retailer. Flipkart set records and raised $ 4 billion from Japan based venture capital firm SoftBank. Despite a failed merger deal with rival Snapdeal, the ecommerce behemoth successfully relaunched their online food delivery arm Supermart in Bengaluru. The Chief Executive Officer of the ecommerce firm Kalyan Krishnamurthy told a news daily the company would now be focusing on increasing its monthly active users.
In December, Flipkart also successfully completed the repurchase of employee stock options (ESOPs) worth $ 100 million. Krishnamurthy further added in the year 2018, the firm will also focus on developing the frequency of transactions and the number of times the Indian customer shops online in a year. Many market analysts estimate currently top online retailers such as Flipkart and Amazon have roughly 15 to 20 million active monthly customers.