Flipkart raises US $1bn as funds

After raising US $1 bn Flipkart has become the largest online market place in India. It was one of the largest funding rounds for any e-commerce company globally. With this the valuation of Flipkart comes to US $7 bn.

This new milestone comes within months of Flipkart becoming the first e-commerce company out of India to hit US $1 billion in GMV.

Co-led by existing investors Tiger Global Management and Naspers, the funds will be used to make long-term strategic investments in India, especially in mobile technology.

Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, GIC, along with existing investors Accel Partners, DST Global, ICONIQ Capital, Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Sofina, also participated in this latest financing round.

Furthermore, the next target for the shopping portal is to become a part of the US $100 bn club.

Flipkart's founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal spoke about the funding, and the company's plans going forward:

"We believe the internet will improve the quality of life for millions of Indians, and e-commerce is going to play a huge role in this change. The focus at Flipkart is to continue to make shopping online simpler and more accessible through the use of technology.

We have close to 22 million registered users today. We handle 5 million shipments a month. These numbers were unheard of a few years back and we are excited about the scale we have managed to achieve. But what is even more exciting is the huge opportunity that we still see before us.

India has 243 million internet users - and this number continues to grow very fast. We want to enable every Indian to either shop or sell online. And we believe that the power of the mobile internet is going to help us achieve this goal.

By 2020 India will have more than half a billion mobile internet users. Our intense focus on mobile and technology puts us in a unique position to take advantage of this massive opportunity.

This new funding will enable us to step up our investments for innovations in products and technologies, setting us up to become the mobile e-commerce company of the future. This funding will help us further accelerate momentum and build our presence to become a technology powerhouse."