Flipkart

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Flipkart is an electronic commerce company headquartered in Bengaluru, India. It was founded in October 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (no relation).[4] Flipkart has launched its own product range under the name "DigiFlip" with products including tablets, USB flash drives, and laptop bags.[5][6][7] As of April 2017, the company was valued at $11.6 billion.[8]

Contents 
1 History
1.1 Acquisitions
2 Business structure
3 Finance
4 Regulatory action and lawsuits
5 Exclusive product launches
5.1 Motorola Mobility
5.2 Xiaomi Tech
5.3 Micromax Yu Yunique
6 In-house products
7 Criticism
8 Awards and recognition
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
History

Flipkart logo used from 2007 to 2015
Flipkart was founded on 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. They worked for Amazon.com, and left to create their new company incorporated in October 2007 as Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd.[9] .[10][11][12] Flipkart started by selling books online and popularised the idea of buying books online in India. Flipkart now employs more than 33,000 people.[13]

In October and November 2011, Flipkart acquired the website Mime360.com[14] and rights to digital catalogue of Chakpak.com.[15] Later, in February 2012, the company revealed its new Flyte Digital Music Store.[16] Flyte, a legal music download service in the vein of iTunes and Amazon.com, offered DRM-free MP3 downloads. But it was shut down on 17 June 2013 as paid song downloads did not get popular in India due to the advent of free music streaming sites.[17][18][19]

After its 2014 Big Billion Sale, Flipkart carried out a second Big Billion Sale.[

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In 2015, Flipkart bought a minority stake in navigation and route optimization startup MapmyIndia to help improve its delivery using Map my India assets. 

Acquisitions
2010: WeRead, a social book discovery tool.[
2011: Chakpak.com, a Bollywood news site that offers updates, news, photos and videos. Flipkart acquired the rights to Chakpak's digital catalogue which includes 40,000 filmographies, 10,000 movies and close to 50,000 ratings. Flipkart has categorically said that it will not be involved with the original site and will not use the brand name.[15]
2012: Letsbuy.com, an Indian e-retailer in electronics. Flipkart has bought the company for an estimated US$25 million.[25][26] Letsbuy.com was closed down and all traffic to Letsbuy has been diverted to Flipkart.[27]
2014: Acquired Myntra.com in an estimated ₹20 billion (US$310 million) deal.[28]
2015: Flipkart acquired a mobile marketing start-up Appiterate as to strengthen its mobile platform.[29]
2016: Flipkart’s Myntra acquires rival fashion shopping site Jabong for $70 million.[30]
2016: In April, Flipkart acquired payment start-up PhonePe.[31]
2017: In January, Flipkart funded Parenting Network Tinystep With $2 Million.[32]
2017: In April, in exchange for an equity stake in Flipkart, eBay agreed to make a $500 million cash investment in and sell its eBay.in business to Flipkart; however, according to a company statement eBay.in would continue to operate as a separate entity from Flipkart.
2017 : In July, Flipkart offered Snapdeal a amount of $700-$800 million, but Snapdeal rejected its deal as they wanted a sum of minimum $1billion cash.[33]
Business structure
In a report dated 25 November 2014, a leading media outlet reported that Flipkart were operating through a complex business structure which included nine firms, some registered in Singapore and some in India. In 2012 Flipkart co-founders sold WS Retail to a consortium of investors led by Rajeev Kuchhal.[34]

Finance
Initially, they had spent ₹400,000 (US$6,200) only for making the website to set up the business.[35] Flipkart has later raised funding from venture capital funds Accel India ($1 million in 2009)[36][37][38] and Tiger Global ($10 million in 2010 and $20 million in June 2011).[39][40][41] On 24 August 2012, Flipkart announced the completion of its 4th round of $150 million funding from MIH (part of Naspers Group) and ICONIQ Capital. The company announced, on 10 July 2013, that it has raised an additional $200 million from existing investors including Tiger Global, Naspers, Accel Partners and Iconiq Capital.[42]

Flipkart's reported sales were ₹40 million (US$620,000) in FY 2008–2009,[43][44] ₹200 million (US$3.1 million) in FY 2009–2010[45] and ₹750 million (US$12 million) for FY 2010–2011.[46] In FY 2011–2012, Flipkart is set to cross the ₹5 billion (US$78 million) mark as Internet usage in the country increases and people get accustomed to making purchases online.[47] Flipkart projects its sales to reach ₹10 billion (US$160 million) by year 2014. On average, Flipkart sells nearly 10 products per minute[48] and is aiming at generating a revenue of ₹50 billion (US$780 million) by 2015.[49]

On November 2012, Flipkart became one of the companies being probed for alleged violations of FDI regulations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999[50][51]

Flipkart reported a loss of ₹2.81 billion (US$44 million) for the FY 2012–13.[52] In July 2013, Flipkart raised $160 million from private equity investors.[53]

In October 2013, it was reported that Flipkart had raised an additional $160 million from new investors Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Sofina SA and Vulcan Inc. with participation from existing investor Tiger Global.[54][55][56]

On 26 May 2014, Flipkart announced that it has raised $210 million from Yuri Milner’s DST Global and its existing investors Tiger Global, Naspers and Iconiq Capital.[57]

In early July 2014, it was also highly speculated that Flipkart was in negotiations to raise at least $500 million, for a likely listing in the US for 2016.[58]

On 29 July 2014, Flipkart announced that it raised $1 billion[59] from Tiger Global Management LLC, Accel Partners, and Morgan Stanley Investment Management and a new investor Singapore sovereign-wealth fund GIC.[60]

On 6 October 2014, Flipkart sold products worth ₹6.5 billion (US$100 million) in 10 hours in a special one-day event – "The Big Billion Day", claiming they had created e-commerce history, but their hard-won reputation for good customer service suffered because of technical problems, and angry reactions on social media from buyers disappointed with the pricing and availability of products.[61][62][63] It claimed to sell a whopping 500,000 mobile handsets, 500,000 clothes and shoes and 25,000 television sets within hours of opening its discounted sale at 8 AM.[64] In December 2014, After it received $700 million from another funding, Flipkart had a market cap of $11 billion.[65] In May 2015 Flipkart has raised $550 million from some of its existing investors, in a deal that raises the valuation of the privately held Indian startup to about $15 billion.[66]

On 20 December 2014, Flipkart announced filing application with Singapore-based companies' regulator ACRA to become a public company after raising $700 million for long term strategic investments in India following which its number of investors exceeded 50. The $700 million fund raised by Flipkart added new investors—Baillie Gifford, Greenoaks Capital, Steadview Capital, T. Rowe Price Associates and Qatar Investment Authority—on company's board.Its existing investors DST Global, GIC, ICONIQ Capital and Tiger Global also participated in this latest financing round.[67]