Anand Piramal invests in Snapdeal

The investment has been made by Anand in his personal capacity. Snapdeal is India's leading value-focused e-commerce marketplace, connecting independent sellers to buyers.

Snapdeal's 2.0 strategy has allowed it to rapidly build a differentiated business, with a sharp focus on value-priced merchandise – the largest segment in retail. Snapdeal is a leader in this market, bringing the relevant selection online for its customers at the right prices and creating a purchase experience that is similar to how India shops offline in the bazaars of India.

Commenting on his personal investment decision in Snapdeal, Anand Piramal said, “Snapdeal’s sharp execution in bringing great selection to the mass market segment in tier 2-3 cities has been quite successful, leveraging the growing Internet penetration in these geographies. The company's mission of enabling the success of hundreds of thousands of small businesses in India through its marketplace is commendable. Since 2017, Snapdeal’s revenues have grown rapidly with profitable unit economics. With hundreds of millions of first time eCommerce buyers yet to transact, Snapdeal is well poised to grow in the future."

Kunal Bahl, CEO & Co-founder of Snapdeal added, "Anand's investment comes as a significant endorsement for Snapdeal and the transformation the company has undergone over the last couple of years. His appreciation for what it takes to build a company with growing revenues with good economics in a competitive market comes from his own experiences of building and operating large companies in competitive sectors like real estate and financial services. We are thrilled to have Anand on board this exciting journey."

Snapdeal’s recently announced audited financial results for FY 2018-19 bear testimony to the success of its 2.0 strategy, showing a strong all-round topline and bottomline performance at the company.

In FY 2018-19, Snapdeal’s revenue soared 73% and its loss dropped sharply by 71%. In the same period, traffic on Snapdeal’s marketplace surged 2.3X to 70 million unique monthly users and the number of transacting users grew 2.2X in the last 12 months.

As per regulatory documents filed by Snapdeal, its consolidated revenues grew to INR 925.3 Crores in 2018-19 as compared to INR 535.9 in 2017-18, marking a sharp increase of nearly 73% in a 12-month period. At the same time, Snapdeal also managed to significantly reduce its loss to INR 186 Crores in FY19 from INR 611 Crores reported in FY18 - a drop of nearly 71%. In the same period, Snapdeal’s revenue from operations grew 87% YoY.