SoftBank`s investment plan for India has started with the purchase of a USD 627 million stake in online marketplace Snapdeal. The former also led a USD 210 million round into taxi app and Uber competitor Ola Cabs. The company’s investments into Snapdeal and Ola come only a week after SoftBank announced it led a USD 100 million round in Indonesian online marketplace company Tokopedia.
Although it did not reveal its stake, SoftBank will become the largest shareholder in Snapdeal, which already counts eBay as a large investor, Forbes reports. Founded in 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal is an ecommerce site with 25 million registered users and 50,000 vendors. Forrester Research expects annual online spending to reach USD 3.2 billion in 2014, a figure that is expected to increase by more than fivefold in 2018.
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