Snapdeal received surprise funding of INR113 crore from its investors

Snapdeal, the third largest online marketplace in the country, has received emergency funding of INR113 crore from its existing investor Nexus Venture Partners and company’s founders. The funding has come as a surprise since the biggest investor in the startup i.e. Softbank is in discussions with Flikpart for a proposed sale to the latter. While Nexus Venture, one of Snapdeal’s earliest backers, was issued shares worth INR96.26 crore in the latest round, Snapdeal chief executive officer and chief operating officer received shares worth INR8.45 crore each.

It is expected that the share issuance relates to Snapdeal’s acquisition of software provider Unicommerce eSolutions Pvt. Ltd, which counted Nexus, Bahl and Bansal among its investors. Nexus and the Snapdeal founders were issued shares in Snapdeal in lieu of their stake in this startup.

However, the above development won’t have any impact on the current negotiations with Flipkart for outright sale. SoftBank Group is trying to engineer the sale after giving up on the online marketplace, which has lost out to Flipkart and Amazon India in the e-commerce battle. While, on the other corner are Nexus, Kalaari Capital and the Snapdeal co-founders, all of whom were initially opposed to the sale owning to valuation concerns, but have not given in to the proposed deal.