Ratan Tata invests in Snapdeal.com

Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, has made a "personal investment" in the online marketplace Snapdeal.com, a statement by the latter said here Wednesday.

Snapdeal.com announced that Ratan Tata has "made a personal investment in the company", the statement said.

However, the Delhi-based Snapdeal.com did not divulge the investment amount.

"This is a very proud and exciting moment for the entire Snapdeal family. An investment by ... Tata is an excellent validation of our focused strategy on building a long term enterprise and marks the start of a very important phase for the company," Kunal Bahl, co-founder and chief executive officer, Snapdeal.com said in the statement.

The four-year-old Snapdeal.com, which was started February 2010, has seen 600 percent growth year-on-year for the last two years and currently houses over 5 million products across 500-plus diverse categories from over 50,000 sellers. The company is run by a young team of 1,500-plus members, the statement added.

The announcement came a day after Snapdeal.com entered into a partnership with Tata Value Homes to sell apartments units of projects spread across various cities -- Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

With 243 million internet users, India's e-commerce industry is growing at 38 percent year-on-year. Analysts expect the market, which is now $15 billion, to touch $100 billion in the next five years.

The Indian e-commerce industry is expected to spend an additional $500 million to $1,000 million on infrastructure, logistics and warehousing, leading to a cumulative spend of $950 million to $1,900 million till 2017-2020, a joint study by industry body Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) and PwC said recently.