Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Snapdeal In Talks To Raise Rs.200 Crore


 Snapdeal the consumer marketing company that owns daily deals website SnapDeal, is in advanced funding talks with Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners, to raise around Rs.200 crore, valuing the copany at Rs 1000 crore, according toThe Economic Times. The report cites a legal industry executive directly involved in the transaction, who claims that Snapdeal intends to use the funds to grow operations; for recruiting executives and in expanding its product lineup.
The company claims to have signed 6 million users and 30,000 merchants on SnapDeal, with daily deals (both online and physical deals included) across categories such as dining, health and beauty services, travel among others, offered in around 100 cities, across India.
In January, Jasper had raised $12 million from Nexus Venture Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners, as part of its second round funding, and had said that it intended to acquire daily deals/group buying firms in Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. It is already present in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives and Singapore.
It also launched a consumer marketing venture called BabyBox.in,last year which on the face of it looks like any other website providing information and expert advice to potential and expecting parents, but focuses on building an offline database of parents of newborns, though an ad supported model. Jasper’s rewards and coupons platform which runs customized rewards and discounts programs for third party clients including co-branded credit cards, had also launched its own rewards card, by the name of Money Saver Prime.
Jasper had also acquired Grabbon, another daily deals site based in Bangalore. Although, Jasper CEO Kunal had said in an interview with MediaNama, that the site will be relaunched in February 2011, one still gets redirected to a ‘domain registered’ landing page.