On Tuesday, Indian e-commerce company Snapdeal filed for an initial public offering (IPO). The company officially joins the league of firms that are ready for the public market. The e-commerce company which has received investments from big names SoftBank, Sequoia Capital India and Foxconn, is finally ready for the public’s eye.
In the draft prospectus of the SoftBank-backed company, it said that it plans on issuing fresh shares worth $165 million. The 11-year-old firm has raised a total of $1.7 billion to date, according to data from Crunchbase. Snapdeal which once competed against big names Flipkart and Amazon shifted its target to serving customers in smaller cities and towns after losing considerable market share in recent years.
According to Snapdeal, over 50 million customers have shopped at least once on its platform since April 2018. In a recent LinkedIn post, co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl wrote that “75%+ of our business comes from repeat customers. More than 70% of our sales are from beyond Tier 2 towns and cities and 99% of our orders come via mobile phones. And we cover 96% of the pin codes in the country. Our users browse and connect with us in seven languages, beyond Hindi and English. Building Snapdeal 2.0 has meant creating all the required underlying capabilities to serve value-savvy users, staying within the guardrails of good economics and moving fast with bold and decisive steps”.
Snapdeal has to shift its target to smaller cities after attempts and talks to merge with Flipkart in 2017 failed.
Today, according to Snapdeal, it has generated operating revenue of $31.9 million in the last six months ending in September.
Other than Snapdeal, other Indian startups such as Zomato, Nykaa, Payt, etc have all filed for an initial public offering this year. Paytm filed for the country’s biggest IPO ever.
Snapdeal has managed to thrive against competitors by shifting its focus to customers in smaller cities. Going public promises to provide the thriving company with a lot of benefits.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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