The Venture Intelligence Blog

Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to Sign Up for the FREE Weekly Edition of the Deal Digest: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to Sign Up for the FREE Weekly Edition of the Deal Digest: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

It all seems to have started with Snapdeal's Kunal Bahl and Mr Ratan Tata (in Aug 2014)      Source: NBW And then Paytm/One97's Vijay Shekhar Sharma took it international with Alibaba's Jack Ma (Feb 2015)      Source:   FirstPost According to  Economic Times , the latest $500 million investment in Snapdeal (led by Foxconn, Alibaba and SoftBank ) -  which has been reported about for several months now  - faced "protracted negotiations" over the company's valuation. Another angle journalists might want to consider (for such delays) is how long it takes to synch up schedules of international personalities (who seem to call all the shots in Indian E/M-Commerce these days) to line up something like this:       Snapdeal founders with Alibaba's Jack Ma and  SoftBank's Nikesh Arora The Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deals Database  currently captures 25+ data points for  private company transactions - with valuation multiples enjoying pride

In an interview to Mint , Aswath Damodaran - the well known US-based valuations expert  - has opined that India’s e-commerce and consumer technology start-ups "may be collectively overvalued". "The size of the macro story may not justify the micro-valuations," he says. Economic Times (in its Corporate Dossier supplement) had earlier featured the views of two local practitioners - Sharad Sharma, Angel Investor and Jacob Mathew, Founder of MAPE Advisory - on the same topic. Sound Byte from Sharad Sharma : "Unfortunately, due to just one individual - Lee Fixel of Tiger Global - Flipkart has gone from being a poster child to being the single biggest risk to the technology ecosystem."  His main argument: Right now, Flipkart is valued at about $500 per transacting user. This is comparable to what Vodafone paid for Hutch in 2007 - the most expensive mobile operator acquisition ever. Built into the Vodafone offer at that time was a belief that the hocke

Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to Sign Up for the FREE Weekly Edition of the Deal Digest: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

h Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to Sign Up for the FREE Weekly Edition of the Deal Digest: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Anand Sanwal, Founder of US Venture Capital databased firm CB Insights, has an interesting critique of email pitches he receives from VCs  (which, going by number of email types he's quoting, happens quite a lot. Ah, the US market!).  Extract: Strategy 4: The Warning Hey Anand, Joe here from Scary Partners.  Love CB Insights and what you guys are doing. I know there has been a lot of companies getting funding in your space so was wondering if you have more seriously begun to think about fundraising.  I know you’ve grown out of revenue to-date but as competitors get funded, raising might make some sense to ensure you stay ahead of them. I would love to chat. Thanks, Joe The Review  .... Cons: For us, someone else raising doesn’t mean much. We’ve seen a bunch of companies come and go in our space with a lot more money than us. The new entrants will be the same.  And so while this email gets a response, it doesn’t do anything to frame why the firm might be an interesting partner

In an interview to  Mint , local search firm Justdial's founder VSS Mani talks about building an Internet business that actually charges customers enough money to make an actual positive bottom line : It would be fair to say that Mani comes across as a contrarian; one who doesn’t believe in the view that an e-commerce business must lose money. “JD did Rs.600 crore of revenue last year. That is equivalent to roughly Rs.60,000 crore revenue of an e-commerce company in terms of GMV,” he says. Gross merchandise value, or GMV, is a term used in online retailing to indicate total sales of merchandise through a particular marketplace over a certain time frame. "Commerce means making money. You cannot have deep discounts; you cannot buy things for Rs.100 and sell at Rs.80. Or (give) cash back."  ..."we are extremely worried about the way things are,” says Mani. “Today we have the talent pool. In the dotcom days, it was a big challenge. People used to join organizations