Online retailer ShopClues on Tuesday said its valuation stood at over $1.1 billion (Rs 7,300 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pvt Ltd.
However, the company did not disclose the amount it raised in the deal. Existing investors, including Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners, have also participated in this round of funding.
With the latest fund-raising, Shopclues, run by Gurgaon-based Clues Network Pvt Ltd, joins a growing club of billion-dollar companies that include Flipkart, Ola, Snapdeal, Paytm, MuSigma, InMobi, Zomato and Quikr.
"As a long-term investor, GIC believes in the strong growth potential of India's e-commerce industry. We are confident that ShopClues' merchant-first mindset and solid management team will enable the company to expand its reach, especially in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, bringing its unique value proposition to even more consumers and merchants," said GIC's Head of Asia Equities Research Ravi Balasubramanian.
GIC, which currently has over $100 billion in assets under management, has also invested in domestic e-commerce major Flipkart and taxi-hailing firm Ola, The Economic Times reported.
ShopClues will invest the funds in strengthening its tech backbone, logistics infrastructure and on-boarding more merchants on its platform.
The company expects to issue an initial public offer (IPO) in 2017 with the latest being its last fund-raising programme.
"We are confident our capital efficiency and execution will make this our last fund-raise before we become profitable with the eventual IPO in 2017," said ShopClues Chief Business Officer Radhika Ghai Aggarwal.
ShopClues said its gross merchandise value has grown more than four times since January 2015, with 3.5 million items being shipped monthly.
ShopClues was founded in 2011 by former Wall Street analyst Sandeep Aggarwal, ex-eBay executive Sanjay Sethi and Nordstorm executive Radhika Ghai Aggarwal.
