India’s e commerce war is set to get extremely exciting in the coming months. One of the largest retail giants in the United States, Walmart Inc., has been upping its investment game by acquiring a large stake in Flipkart. Walmart is currently in the final leg of striking a deal that will see it spending about $ 7 billion to become the largest investor in India’s leading homegrown e commerce firm, Flipkart, which is currently locked in a fierce battle with Amazon.
According to reports, once the deal goes through, Walmart will own around a third of Flipkart’s shares, making it the majority share holder in parts. This is going to happen after purchasing stakes from existing investors, Tiger Global Management and SoftBank Group Corp. This goes against earlier reservations by Japan’s Softbank which had shown reluctance to let Walmart take the driving seat in the e commerce venture.
The deal, expected to go through at the end of this month, will raise the valuation of Flipkart’s valuation to about $ 20 billion. This increases Flipkart’s valuation drastically as it stood at only $ 12 billion in the past year. The deal is expected to get finalised in the next two weeks which means Walmart is expected to enter the Indian e commerce market by the end of March 2018 or early April 2018.
Apart from being a strong financial investment in the country, this investment by Walmart brings to front the constant rivalry between Amazon and Walmart. Looking at this massive investment from Walmart, existing investor SoftBank is looking at pulling out from its commitments to Flipkart. Once this round of investment goes through, Flipkart ends up becoming one of the largest e commerce platforms not only in India, but across the world as well.
The deal could be a major payday for all the existing investors. Flipkart’s first institutional backer, Accel India had invested $ 1 million at a valuation less than $ 5 million in 2009. The firm has already cashed in about $ 150 to $ 200 million and will see the value of its 5-6% stake swell to about $ 1 billion.
