India’s e-commerce market is projected to grow sevenfold to $22 billion in the next five years, and investors and global e-commerce companies want to have a piece of the action. We have learned that Myntra, one of the bigger fashion portals in the country focusing both on traditional and more western fashion, has closed a $50 million round of funding. And, as that round closed, it got approached by both Amazon and Flipkart (known informally as “the Amazon of India”), with Flipkart making an acquisition offer in the region of $200 million.
The developments come on the heels of reports of both Flipkart’s interest and a fundraise.
The $50 million round, with a pre-money valuation of close to $200 million, has four main investors: PremjiInvest, Belgian-based Sofina, Accel and Tiger Global. A fifth, L Capital, may also be involved.
PremjiInvest is the investment vehicle of the family of Azim Premji, with a fund size of approximately $2 billion and a strong focus on tech. (Premji is the chairman of Wipro, the Indian IT giant that is surely one of the most epic pivots of all time: Wipro started as Western Indian Vegetable Products.) Sofina is a Belgium-based investor with a specialty in e-commerce, and both it and Tiger Global also invest in Flipkart, most recently in that company’s $160 million round. Accel is an active investor in India and was a previous investor in Myntra, which has now raised $125 million to date.
Read more on TechCrunch