E-commerce giant Flipkart has acquired a little over 34 per cent stake in digital mapping firm MapmyIndia, in a deal that values the Delhi-based mapping company at around $260 million or Rs 1,600 crore.
For Flipkart, this investment is likely to be one of the biggest strategic investments made by the Bengaluru company which was estimated to be worth about $15 billion at its last round of funding.
"With this strategic investment, we are taking another concrete step towards transforming the supply chain ecosystem in India, making technology and information the driver of our supply chain and logistics solutions," said Binny Bansal, Flipkart COO and Co-founder.
According to a report in The Economic Times, Flipkart is also likely to get two seats on the eight-member board of MapmyIndia, with senior VP for engineering Hari Vasudev and head of consumer experience and growth Surojit Chatterjee expected to join, said people aware of the developments.
While Flipkart will invest up to $5 million in primary capital, it bought a stake of about 32 per cent from MapmyIndia's early investors venture capital funds — Lightbox and Nexus Venture Partners — according to filings with Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA).
In future, the companies will collaborate on other services that are likely to be introduced like better address verification, real-time shipment tracking, facility mapping and theft minimisation via geo-fencing.
MapmyIndia Managing Director and Co-founder Rakesh Verma said the company is "thrilled" to welcome Flipkart as a strategic minority investor and looked forward to sharing its domain expertise with them.
MapmyIndia provides map data and APIs, GPS navigation, tracking, location apps and GIS solutions.
BW Reporters
The author is Senior Correspondent with BW Businessworld
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