MUMBAI: Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has picked up a $150 million stake in India’s e-commerce poster boy Flipkart, which closed a $700 million fund raising on Wednesday.
QIA is the new investor buying into Flipkart, valued at around $11 billion, taking it among the top five privately held technology startups in the world. Existing investors had committed $500 to 600 million in fresh financing.
QIA, the owner of Harrods department store in London, joins GIC of Singapore as another sovereign investor in Flipkart. Deutsche Bank advised QIA on the just concluded investment, said sources cited earlier. Middle East sovereign funds have been looking at India’s e-commerce sector for a while.
Further QIA has investments in Tiffany, Barclays, Credit Suisse and a $1.2 billion stake in India’s biggest mobile phone carrier Bharti Airtel. The investment in India’s e-commerce sector, which is projected to grow seven fold to $22 billion by 2018, adds to QIA’s spree of acquisitions.
