Abu Dhabi’s ADQ and Qatar’s QIA among investors in latest Flipkart funding round

Flipkart completed a fundraising round valuing the Indian online retailer at $37.6bn, with main owner Walmart joining investors including SoftBank Group in injecting $3.6bn of fresh capital.

Tencent Holdings, Blackstone Group-backed Antara Capital and several sovereign wealth and pension funds also participated, the company said Monday in a statement. Those include Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund ADQ, Singapore’s GIC, Qatar Investment Authority and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

The funding round is a boon for Flipkart and US retail giant Walmart, which bought a majority of the Indian company three years ago for $16bn and has been working toward an initial public offering for the business. It has since carved out the payments arm PhonePe from Flipkart, a unit that could be valued at close to $10bn, people familiar with the matter said.

“As we serve our consumers, we will focus on accelerating growth for millions of small and medium Indian businesses,” CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said in the statement.

Japan’s SoftBank, which had previously backed Flipkart and then sold its stake to Walmart at a handsome profit, is back as a shareholder. Investors are plowing billions of dollars into India’s consumer internet and software-as-a-service startups, which are growing rapidly and benefiting from the coronavirus pandemic.