Around 15 years ago there was a boom in the e-commerce space, with companies like Amazon and eBay making huge dents. Now there seems to be another wave coming, as funding for e-commerce startups is exploding.
There was a total of $11.2 billion put into the e-commerce sector in 2014, an increase of 133% from the $4.8 billion invested in 2013, according to data out from CB Insights on Tuesday. Interestingly, the number of deals actually fell slightly, with 481 in 2014, down from 490 in 2013. In the first quarter of 2015 alone, there has already been $3.3 billion invested in 133 deals. If those numbers remain steady, that would mean that this year would see $13.2 billion invested and 532 deals. Very impressive numbers.
Who are the companies that are making up this new e-commerce wave? There are 10 of them, and together they have raised over $10 billion since 2010.
The biggest one is Indian company Flipkart, which has raised roughly $3 billion overall. Last year alone it picked up a $210 million investment led by DST Global in May and then the aforementioned $1 billion round, led by Tiger Global and Naspers, in July. It raised another $700 million to close out the year. Chinese company Dianping has raised $1 billion, including $850 million in March.
Number three on the list is Delivery Hero, which has taken three investments this year. Two of them were from Rocket Internet, which, in February, took a 30% stake in Delivery Hero, for the price of €496 million, or $562.4 million, and that was then followed by it taking another 9% of the company for €52 million in March. Earlier this month Delivery Hero raised another $110 million from undisclosed investors.
Next on the list is another Indian company, Snapdeal, which raised at least $860 million in four rounds in 2014. Round one led by eBay in February, in which it invested $133.7 million. This round also included Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Saama Capital. 2nd Round, $100 million from Temasek, BlackRock, Myriad, Premji Invest and Tybourne in May. 3rd Round, an undisclosed personal investment from Ratan Tata in August. The company then added another $627 million from Softbank in October.
It should be noted that nine out of the 10 most well-funded companies are international, with four of them coming from China and the two from India…….
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