Online shopping store Shopclues is looking for funds to the tune of Rs.990 to 1,320 crores so as to double its estimated worth in less than a year. According to Sanjeev Aggarwal, senior managing director at Helion Ventures which has a stake in Shopclues, the company may also go for a public offering to achieve its objective. “We feel we could be the first ecommerce company to go public,” added Agarwal.
ShopClues ranks fourth in the ecommerce domain, behind Flipkart, Snapdeal and Paytm. In January this year, the company was funded to the tune of $100 by Tiger Global Management. In Shopclues latest hunt for funding, participation is again expected from Tiger Global. This was confirmed by Radhika Aggarwal, chief marketing officer at Shopclues, who declined to comment on the valuation or potential share price.
In the industry, soaring valuations have become a cause for concern amongst fund managers, who are reluctant to part with their money, unless the business models are on firmer and more secure footing. In recent times, many startups have been faced with a cash crunch, coercing them to layoff employees, which has been resisted by the latter.
According to Radhika Aggarwal, Shopclues has a differentiated model since it focuses on margins, vendors and unstructured categories, thereby growing a strong business. She states, “we ship almost one-third the orders of Flipkart and half the orders of Snapdeal and our entire employee strength is about 850.” Non-electronics items account for more than 80% of Shopclue’s sales. In some categories the margins are as good as 25%. Competitors focused on electronics were operating on margins of less than 5%.In the financial year ending 2015, Shopclues soared to 79 crores from 31 crores in the corresponding year, whilst its losses also grew from Rs.38 crores to 100 crores.
In June 2011 in Silicon Valley, Shopclues was founded and began operations in India from Gurgaon.