India-based e-commerce company Flipkart has closed a funding round sized between $500m and $600m from investors including internet company Naspers, Times of India reported on Monday.
Naspers, and investment firms Tiger Global and DST Global each invested between $50m and $100m in the round, which valued Flipkart at $10bn. One new investor participated, but the backers were otherwise all existing investors.
News of the funding came less than four months after Flipkart raised $1bn from Naspers, Tiger Global, GIC, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina, Accel Partners and Iconiq Capital at a $7bn valuation. It was valued at $1bn at the time of its series D round in August 2012.
A source told the newspaper: “Although there was a lot of interest from new investors, Flipkart was not keen on raising more money at this point. This new round is largely being done by the large existing investors.”
Some of Flipkart’s early investors may not have taken part in the latest round, the source added. It has now raised between $2.2bn and $2.3bn since it was founded in 2007, with past backers also including Dragoneer and Vulcan Capital.
Flipkart, which pursues a diversified e-commerce model similar to that of Amazon, has had a busy year. In addition to the July funding, it secured $210m in May, which helped fund the acquisition of fashion e-commerce site Myntra.
The company is reportedly planning to go public in the US in the next three years, and Times of India predicts it could raise between $2bn and $3bn of additional equity funding in that timeframe.