SoftBank Group Corp. has invested in Snapdeal Ltd.-owned Unicommerce ahead of the online retailer’s $250-million (around Rs 2,000 crore) initial public offering, according to a person privy to the transaction.
The Masayoshi Son-founded company has picked up a 30% stake in the e-commerce management firm, the person told BloomberQuint on the condition of anonymity as the details are not public.
Snapdeal aims to go public in early 2022, and plans to file preliminary documents for the IPO as early as next week, another person said.
SoftBank already holds around a 33% stake in Snapdeal.
Entrackr first reported on the transaction.
Snapdeal has yet to respond to BloombergQuint’s emailed queries.
Unicommerce has more than 350 enterprise clients. Its key clientele includes over 2,000 small and medium businesses across India such as Marico, Netmeds, Myntra, Healthkart, Mamaearth, Sugar Cosmetics, Adidas, Vero Moda and Chumbak, among others.
It has also expanded operations into the international market and has more than 25 clients across nine countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
Snapdeal—once considered to be one of the fiercest rivals of Flipkart and Amazon in India’s growing e-commerce market—had acquired Unicommerce in 2015. By 2017, founders Ankit Pruthi, Karun Singla, Vibhu Garg and Manish Gupta had quit. In 2018, Snapdeal tried to sell Unicommerce. Infibeam Incorporation Ltd. had agreed to acquire it but the deal fell through.
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