The Walmart-Flipkart deal is the biggest e-commerce the world has ever seen. A startup that was founded by 2 IIT Delhi students, now values more than $20 billion. Along with the hard work of Sachin and Binny Bansal, Flipkart got support from investors right from its early days. In this article, we are sharing the timeline of fundings that Flipkart received from 2007 to the Walmart’s deal.
2007
Flipkart started with an investment of Rs 4 lakh in 2007.
2008
Ashish Gupta, the founder of Junglee was the first angel investor in Flipkart. He invested Rs 10 lakh initially which now values above Rs 100 crore after Walmart’s acquisition.
2009
A year later, VC firm Accel invested a fund of $1 million in Flipkart. Soon, Tiger Global Management joined and raised $10 million in funding round.
2010-11
Tiger Global decided to increase its funding in Flipkart and raised $20 million. This made other firms to notice Flipkart’s growth. Flipkart acquired WeRead in 2010 to grow its business.
2012
This was the year when Flipkart became a unicorn startup. It received $150 million in the funding round led by tech company Naspers. Flipkart’s net worth reached $1 billion.
2013
Seeing the growth in the number of online customers, Flipkart raised $200 million from its existing investors 2013. Also, the company received $160 million more from Morgan Stanley, Sofina, Vulcan Capital and Dragoneer. The valuation fo Flipkart reached $1.6 billion.
Also read: 10 Rare Images That Show The Amazing Flipkart Journey
2014
Flipkart acquired Myntra and raised $210 million from DST Global. In the same year, Flipkart raised a whopping amount of $1 billion funding from GIC Singapore and existing investors including Naspers and Tiger Global. This increased the valuation of Flipkart 1.5 times within the time span of under 3 months.
Flipkart raised a $700 million fund from hedge funds like Greenoaks, Steadview Capital, sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, mutual fund T Rowe Price. Flipkart’s valuation again increased to more than $11 billion.
Flipkart launched its own electronics products under the brand name DigiFlip. A new brand named Citron with home appliances and personal healthcare products was also launched.
2015
The e-commerce giant raised $700 million from its existing investors and reached the valuation of $15.5 billion. A mobile marketing startup named Appiterate was also acquired in 2015.
2016
The year started with some bad news for Flipkart as it received the first big markdown by Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund. The valuation reached $11 billion. Markdowns kept continuing by several mutual fund investors including Vanguard, T Rowe Price, and Fidelity. US-based company Valic raised funds after these markdowns.
2017
Flipkart received funding of $1.4 billion from companies including eBay, Microsoft, and Tencent. Later in the same year, Softbank Vision Fund invested $2.5 billion.
The success story of Flipkart continued in 2018 and now it has been acquired by retail giant Walmart by selling 77 percent of its stakes at $16 billion.
