Tech czar Azim Premji is boarding India's rapidly expanding e-commerce story. His family office, PremjiInvest, is in discussions to lead a $50-million (or Rs 300-crore) fund-raise in fashion e-tailer Myntra.
PremjiInvest has a corpus of more than $1 billion for private equity-type investments in listed as well as privately-run growth companies. Premji's entry signals the trend of bulge bracket Indian investors beginning to place bets on the domestic e-commerce market, which has largely been riding on foreign investments so far.
PremjiInvest is likely to be a co-investor in the latest round of funding, which may also include British investor CDC, valuing Myntra at around $250 million (Rs 1,500 crore). Existing investors Accel Partners and Tiger Global, two US investors who are prolific backers of the Indian e-commerce play, will also participate in latest fund-raise.
IITians Mukesh Bansal, Ashutosh Lawania, and Vineet Saxena founded Myntra in 2007, which has since changed its business model from being a portal offering personalized gifting options to a fashion and lifestyle retailer. It sells multi-brand fashion merchandise online with annual gross revenues nearing Rs 800 crore, or $120 million. Myntra has so far raised $75 million in funds from its existing investors.
US investment bank Pacific Crest is advising Myntra on the transaction. The fresh funding comes at a time when the poster-boy of Indian e-commerce and Myntra's cross-town rival Flipkart has expanded its fashion business, piling up pressure on specialized online rivals.
Last month, Flipkart raised a record $360 million from investors, including Morgan Stanley, indicating that industry leaders were attracting big bucks even as laggards continued to drop off without any funding. Myntra has also been collaborating with brands to create its own fashion lines fetching it better margins. In-house private labels now account for 15 per cent of Myntra sales and its share would increase substantially in the coming months.
In the last three years, the Indian e-commerce industry has witnessed a 150 per cent growth rate, increasing from $3.8 billion in 2009 to $9.5 billion in 2012, a recent report jointly released by KPMG and IAMAI said.
Source: Economic Times; TOI
PremjiInvest has a corpus of more than $1 billion for private equity-type investments in listed as well as privately-run growth companies. Premji's entry signals the trend of bulge bracket Indian investors beginning to place bets on the domestic e-commerce market, which has largely been riding on foreign investments so far.
PremjiInvest is likely to be a co-investor in the latest round of funding, which may also include British investor CDC, valuing Myntra at around $250 million (Rs 1,500 crore). Existing investors Accel Partners and Tiger Global, two US investors who are prolific backers of the Indian e-commerce play, will also participate in latest fund-raise.
IITians Mukesh Bansal, Ashutosh Lawania, and Vineet Saxena founded Myntra in 2007, which has since changed its business model from being a portal offering personalized gifting options to a fashion and lifestyle retailer. It sells multi-brand fashion merchandise online with annual gross revenues nearing Rs 800 crore, or $120 million. Myntra has so far raised $75 million in funds from its existing investors.
US investment bank Pacific Crest is advising Myntra on the transaction. The fresh funding comes at a time when the poster-boy of Indian e-commerce and Myntra's cross-town rival Flipkart has expanded its fashion business, piling up pressure on specialized online rivals.
Last month, Flipkart raised a record $360 million from investors, including Morgan Stanley, indicating that industry leaders were attracting big bucks even as laggards continued to drop off without any funding. Myntra has also been collaborating with brands to create its own fashion lines fetching it better margins. In-house private labels now account for 15 per cent of Myntra sales and its share would increase substantially in the coming months.
In the last three years, the Indian e-commerce industry has witnessed a 150 per cent growth rate, increasing from $3.8 billion in 2009 to $9.5 billion in 2012, a recent report jointly released by KPMG and IAMAI said.
Source: Economic Times; TOI
RSS Feed
