Domestic e-commerce major Snapdeal has raised funds worth $200 million in a fresh round of funding, even as other players struggle to get investments amid growing cautiousness over the sector's profitability.
The latest fundraising by Snapdeal helped the fim's market value to reach $6.5 billion. The investment is led by Canada's Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Reuters reports.
After the last round of funding of $500 million in August last year, Snapdeal's value had reached $5 billion. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Foxconn Technology Group and SoftBank Corp had invested in the company last year.
After witnessing a surge in their valuations in the first half of 2015, Indian e-commerce companies are now struggling to their raise valuations, as fundraising gets difficult amid growing concerns over huge discounts offered by them.
Venture capitalists, who have infused billions of dollars in e-commerce firms in the past two years, are now becoming cautious about investments, as losses faced by the players in the online retailing space see multi-fold increase.
Investments by venture capital firms in the country declined to $600 million to $1.51 billion in the October to December period of 2015, against $2.12 billion in the same period in 2014, according to a report by CB Insights and KPMG International.
Amid intensifying competition in the country e-commerce sector, companies are finding it difficult to cut back on discounts to gain customers. Flipkart's annual losses escalated 180 percent to Rs 2,000 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2015, and its revenue also tripled in the period.
