Walmart, the parent firm of Flipkart, has invested $600 million in the homegrown e-commerce platform. Flipkart gave this publication confirmation of the financing. According to estimates, the business may get an additional $400 million in funding, and new investors will participate in the next financing round. Flipkart remained silent on this, but rumor has it that the cash would elevate the company’s worth by five to ten percent over where it is already valued. About $35 billion was its most recent valuation. The money will be used by Flipkart to grow its business. In July, Walmart purchased the shares of Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Accel, and Tiger Global Management, who had left the e-commerce company.
Walmart announced earlier in July that it spent $3.5 billion to purchase shares from certain Flipkart non-controlling interest holders for the six months that ended on July 31, 2023, according to a filing. The American retail giant acquired Tiger Global’s remaining Flipkart shares for around $1.4 billion. Walmart acquired a 77% share in the e-commerce business for around $16 billion in 2018, and according to Tracxn, the company now has approximately 80.5% of Walmart’s equity.
After splitting off its payments division PhonePe in December of last year, Flipkart paid out $700 million in cash to around 24,000 workers—including former employees—in July. This is to make up for PhonePe’s split from the e-commerce company. During an August earnings call, Walmart said that Flipkart and PhonePe are both still growing at an outstanding pace. Flipkart specifically reported a good increase in net sales and GMV (gross merchandise value) as the company’s core business continued to expand.
Flipkart, Myntra, Flipkart Wholesale, Flipkart Health+, and Cleartrip are group businesses that are part of the Flipkart Group. More than 500 million people are reportedly registered users, and over 14 lakh sellers—including Shopsy sellers—are present on the network. Flipkart had a consolidated net income of Rs 56,012.8 crore and consolidated losses of Rs 4,890.6 crore for FY23.
The domestic e-commerce company said in its Flip Trends 2023 report that consumers visited Flipkart for an average of seven hours this year and that, until November 2023, the platform had welcomed over 41 million new users. Additionally, it said that the company’s premium skincare baby goods, which witnessed a 50% rise in 2023, and newborn formula achieved 100% growth.
