Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank is making its very first bet in the booming e-commerce space in India with a whopping investment of Rs 640 crore (approx. $1 million) in the online furniture company Pepperfry. This has been done along with a new investor Zodius Capital apart from the existing backers Bertelsmann India investments and Norwest Venture Partners.
As per Ankur Sahu, the Co-Head of Private Equity at Goldman Sachs Asia stated that Goldman has joined the list of world’s most sophisticated investors that is growing from Morgan Stanley to DST Global betting on the market that is believed to witness a growth taking it to $50 billion by the year 2020.
He further revealed that there is a strong conviction for the theme of local consumption growth in the country. By means of the latest investment in Pepperfry.com, the investment bank is intending to leverage the global expertise in the segment to help in creating a differentiated and large dominator in the e-commerce industry of India that growth swiftly. The PR firm has invested Rs 64 crore in Azure Hospitality that runs a pan Asian casual dining chain under the Mamagoto brand lately.
The most recent round of funding will help the e-commerce store Pepperfry in overhauling its investments in both technology and infrastructure. The portal appears to compete with Ratan Tata backed UrbanLadder and Rocket Internet’s Fabfurnish dominating the furniture segment of e-commerce. Over the next couple of years or so, the portal is aiming to cross $1 billion in GMV and it is aiming to be a one stop shop for the furniture and home requirements in India, stated Ambareesh Murty, the Founder and CEO of Pepperfry.
Pepperfry that reaches to over 300 cities across the country is planning to expand the footprint of its logistics to the tier 3 and tier 4 towns in India. It is in plans to double its logistics fleet from the existing 300 vehicles and increase the distribution centers to 20 from 15 right now. The technology and engineering team will be quadrupled as well.
