SoftBank’s Vision Fund invests in Flipkart
SoftBank’s Vision Fund has made a major investment in Flipkart, making it one of the largest shareholders in the Indian e-commerce company. In a statement issued today (10 August), Flipkart said that this was “the biggest ever private investment in an Indian technology company”. with Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, Co-Founders of Flipkart, describing it as a “monumental deal for Flipkart and India”.
Flipkart added: “The investment is part of the previously announced financing round, where Flipkart had raised capital from three of the world’s premier technology companies — Tencent, eBay and Microsoft. After this financing round, Flipkart will have in excess of $4 billion of cash on its balance sheet.”
SoftBank is significant investor of India’s other indigenous e-commerce giant, Snapdeal. As previously reported, Flipkart was recently involved in lengthy negotiations to buy Snapdeal – and Softbank was understood to be a strong support of the deal – but the talks were finally called off last month.
