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...