India-based online marketplace operator Flipkart launched a corporate venture capital fund yesterday to invest in local early-stage startups operating in sectors such as e-commerce and financial technology.
The size of the fund was not officially confirmed, though people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg Quint it has been allocated between $80m and $100m. The same sources said Flipkart would invest between $2m and $3m in portfolio companies.
Founded in 2007, Flipkart runs an e-commerce platform aimed at the Indian market, selling consumer goods across categories such as apparel, electronics, homeware, appliances, books, car and bike accessories and children’s toys. It has been majority owned by retailer Walmart since August 2018.
The company aims to build an e-commerce ecosystem that will allow it to tap into the next wave of domestic consumers to come online in the coming years, once barriers such as access and affordability are tackled.
Flipkart claims only an estimated 400 million citizens out of India’s more than 1.2 billion residents have adopted modern-day technologies and services.
Although it has not run a corporate venturing fund, Flipkart has conducted investments through its M&A division, in companies including digital map provider MapMyIndia, and has bought fashion e-commerce portal Myntra, payment app PhonePe and speech-to-text technology developer Liv.ai.
The fund will be headed by Emily McNeal, Flipkart’s chief financial officer, according to Bloomberg Quint.
McNeal said: “We are proud of the fact that as a homegrown company, Flipkart’s innovations have helped create much of the ecosystem on which the Indian e-commerce industry has thrived over the past decade, be it in supply chain and logistics, after sales and support, or technology.
“Those efforts set the stage for the growth of e-commerce in the country, and we are seeing startups today trying to solve unique challenges that could help bring millions more into the digital fold, helping contribute to the ‘Digital India’ program.
“With this initiative, we are delighted to support such innovative early-stage startups that are working on next-gen technology in and around our ecosystem. The aim is to seed innovation that is good for India and which promotes digital inclusion in a variety of spaces, by enabling startups to focus on bringing their ideas to life and scaling them.”
