Quikr, the online classifieds company Quikr is all set to join the privileged group of tech companies called unicorn club valued at over a billion dollars. This follows the recent completion of $60 million secondary round in which the Swedish investor called Kinnevik and a couple of other investors including Falcon Edge and Coatue Management took part in valuing it at around $900 million.
The early investors of Quikr are Matrix Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Omidyar Network and Warburg Pincus. These investors have part of their shares sold making them aware of fletching generous returns, claim the sources that are close to the development.
There will be a secondary sale when an existing investor sells off his or her share to the new one or a promoter right at the company’s current valuation.
The unicorn club in India comprises of three major e-commerce companies that PayTM, Flipkart, Ola, Europe and InMobi. On contacting, the founder of Quikr, Pranay Chulet, an IIT Delhi and IIM Mumbai alumnus, there were no comments on the secondary round in the country.
The private equity firm Kinnevik stated while announcing the quarterly results of the firm that it invested $20 million as the secondary share in Quikr. This way, the firm became the largest shareholder in the firm. So far, Kinnevik has invested about $84 million and it is controlling 18 percent stake in the company. In July, the secondary share transactions of Quikr were valued at $900 million.
Amidst the cash burn and valuations, the early investors in the country’s booming e-commerce sector have started to book profits. It was reported in the last year about the secondaries that were done at Flipkart and Snapdeal helping the firms earn huge profits to the early investors of their firms respectively. The exits of the early investors through secondary transactions are a vigorous trend as most the VCs have found only a few exits in the country.
In April, Kinnevik invested $40 million that was a part of $150 million funding that was dominated by Tiger Global. Quikr was claimed to have raised $350 million in capital, but this did not include the latest secondary round. Also, this makes Quikr compete with OLX directly considering that the latter is backed by the South African internet and media dominator Naspers.
