Snapdeal, Flipkart top valuation growth league table in 2015

The valuation of Snapdeal and Flipkart have grown 680 per cent and 531 per cent, respectively, in 2015 from 2014, while Ola's valuation rose 109 per cent. The numbers are based on the amount invested by major private equity (PE) funds. Experts said the valuations so far were based on the disruptions made by these companies and the performance expected.

According to Venture Intelligence data, when Snapdeal raised $134 million from Kalaari Capital, Intel Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer, Saama Capital and others, the e-commerce major was valued at Rs 4,224 crore, in February 2014. In August 2015, when the company raised $500 million from Temasek, PremjiInvest, SoftBank Corp and others, it was valued at Rs 32,962 crore.
 

Similarly, when Flipkart raised $210 million from Tiger Global, Iconiq Capital, DST Global and others in May 2014, the company was valued at Rs 15,662 crore, which rose to Rs 98,800 crore in July 2015, when Tiger Global, Steadview Capital and others invested $700 million in it.

It may be noted that in February 2012, when the company raised $150 million from the same set of investors, the valuation was around Rs 5,000 crore.

On-demand taxi aggregator Ola's valuation rose to Rs 31,467 crore in September 2015, when the company raised $500 million from Arun Sarin's family, GIC, Tiger Global, SoftBank Corp, DST Global, Steadview, Falcon Edge Capital, and Baillie Gifford. The company was valued at Rs 1,050 crore in July 2014 when it raised $41.6 million from Sequoia Capital India, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners India and Steadview. When the company raised $4 million from Tiger Global in April 2012, it was valued at Rs 60 crore.

While e-mails sent to Snapdeal, Flipkart and Ola got no response, Sanjeev Krishan, leader, private equity, PwC India, said if the companies perform as per the expectations, the valuations would continue to grow. If not, these would moderate.

In a continuation from 2014, Flipkart and Snapdeal garnered $1.45 billion between them, followed by Ola that gathered $900 million.

According to Venture Intelligence, Flipkart raised $700 million at a reported valuation of $15.2 billion in a round that saw participation from existing investors, Tiger Global and Steadview Capital, taking the total funding to $3.2 billion. Snapdeal raised $500 million in August in a round led by Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group, Foxconn Technology Group and existing investor SoftBank.

Year 2015 witnessed a quantum jump in exits in e-commerce. Data show a total of 28 exits, with value estimated to be $1,065 million, compared to 14 exits worth $151 million in previous year. Top exits include Sequoia Capital India, Valiant Capital, Ru-Net Holdings and Tybourne Capital's exit from Freecharge in April 2015. The acquirer was Snapdeal and the amount realised by the investors was $400 million.

This was followed by IDG Ventures' stake stale in Flipkart to Myntra in March 2015. The investor realised $150 million. During the same month, Helion Ventures, Accel India, Bessemer, Blume Ventures, Accel USA have sold stake in TaxiForSure to Ola and realised $141 million.

In May 2015, Tiger Global sold stake in JustDial and realised $94 million. In July 2015, Warburg Pincus, Norwest, Matrix Partners India, Nokia Growth Partners, and Omidyar Network sold stake in Quikr and realised $60 million.