SoftBank continues to invest in India through Startups

Delhivery is the recent SoftBank’s third investment in India this year. A few days ago, online grocer Grofers raised about $60 million from Softbank Vision Fund, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital, as a part of its Series F round of funding round. Online-offline baby products retailer FirstCry has also raised $149.36 million from SoftBank.

Masayoshi Son, founder of Japanese giant SoftBank Group had said in late 2014 that his group will invest $10 billion in the Indian market by 2024. It hasn’t been 5 years and SoftBank has already surpassed the mark of $8 billion dollars in investments in India and is expected to overachieve its target a lot sooner than anticipated.

InMobi: A global mobile advertising platform founded by Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena, Amit Gupta, and Abhay Singhal in 2007. After SoftBank’s initial investment in 2011, InMobifirst became EBITDA profitable for the year ending December 2016, according to the company’s press release.

Ola: India’s leading cab aggregator received $210 million in October 2014 from SoftBank. Ola has since then expanded to new countries along with the acquisition of TaxiForSure and Foodpanda, food delivery platform. In a recent development, Ola has started making money on every ride and is aiming for profitability by 2019.

Snapdeal: This e-commerce marketplace was amongst one of the early high-value investments in India by SoftBank, receiving $650 million in total. Unlike its other successful investments, Snapdeal is struggling to further raise money for expansion. After a series of discussions last year, Flipkart had backed out from the deal to acquire Snapdeal.

Housing: Mumbai-based real estate searching platform Housing.com received $90 million from SoftBank in December 2014. Housing was founded by Rahul Yadav and his classmates from IIT-Bombay in 2012.

OYO: This Indian hospitality startup got $100 million from SoftBank in August 2015. Oyo is now the largest hospitality company in India and it has also announced its entry in the UK, Indonesia, along with other European countries after entering China. In a recent development, Oyo is set to enter the wedding industry, and it has also acquired AblePlus, to foray into IoT. It kicked-off its Japan operations recently.

Grofers: An Indian online grocery delivery service had raised $120 million from SoftBank in November 2015. Grofers was founded by Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa in 2013 with its headquarter in Gurugram. Grofers continues to grow its user base and is operating in 13 cities across the country.

hike Messenger: Hike, India’s first social and technology company provides messaging services for its user. It was founded by Kavin Bharti Mittal in 2012. SoftBank was one of the investors to invest in its first round of funding in April 2013.

Paytm: India’s largest digital payments startup came under SoftBank’s radar much later in May 2017, when SoftBank finally got the opportunity to invest $1,400 million. Paytm has turned out to be one of the best bets for SoftBank in India. Paytm has been in the news recently for crossing 5 billion transactions in a year and Paytm is also venturing into forex services.

Flipkart: Investing in Snapdeal instead of Flipkart could be one of the few mistakes made by SoftBank in its early years in the Indian market but it was rectified as soon as SoftBank got the opportunity to invest in Flipkart in August 2017. SoftBank invested a record-breaking $2,600 million, almost doubling its previous high-value investment of $1,400 million in Paytm.

Flipkart was recently acquired by the US retail giant Walmart for a colossal $16 billion, making it an international favorite. It is also looking to venture into digital lending, having applied for NBFC license.

Uber: This cab aggregator received investment from SoftBank in the amount of $1,200 million at the end of 2017. Uber is a competitor of Ola, another cab aggregator backed by SoftBank.

To know more about Softbank`s recent investment check this link

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