Flipkart, the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce startup that carefully fights Amazon within the South Asian market, is getting ready to shift its headquarters again to India from Singapore as the corporate prepares to file for an IPO on Indian inventory exchanges.
On Monday, Flipkart mentioned the transfer “represents a pure evolution, aligning our holding construction with our core operations, the huge potential of the Indian financial system.”
The e-commerce large, which began its operations in 2007 in Bengaluru, moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2011 to draw extra international investments, profit from tax benefits, and higher navigate bureaucratic hurdles and political challenges in India.
“As an organization born and nurtured in India, this transition will additional improve our focus and agility in serving our prospects, sellers, companions, and communities to proceed contributing to the nation’s rising digital financial system and entrepreneurship,” a Flipkart spokesperson mentioned in a press release.
The relocation is topic to requisite approvals, the startup mentioned, with out disclosing a particular timeline. Nevertheless, Flipkart is predicted to file for an IPO within the nation someday subsequent 12 months.
In 2022, Walmart-backed PhonePe, which cut up from Flipkart in late 2022, moved its headquarters to India from Singapore. A number of different startups, together with Zepto and Groww, have additionally relocated their headquarters to India in the previous few months as they sought public listings on the Indian inventory exchanges.
Nevertheless, India’s present public market surroundings is not as appealing as it had been up until late last year, because the market goes by some corrections and is impacted by macro situations. IPOs made up round $19 billion of the document $70 billion fairness deal quantity reached in India final 12 months, with 11 IPOs priced at above $500 million, per a report by Goldman Sachs.
Nonetheless, buyers are optimistic concerning the development potential within the Indian market, as a number of corporations are ready to go public this 12 months and subsequent.
“The supportive valuation surroundings has spurred issuer exercise. A number of the unicorns who have been considering of going public within the U.S. switched to India as a result of they felt India supported a greater valuation,” mentioned Sudarshan Ramakrishnan, co-head of India funding banking at Goldman Sachs.
The newest transfer by Flipkart additionally comes nearly a 12 months after raising $350 million from Google as a part of a virtually $1 billion funding spherical, which it kicked off in 2023. The startup was valued at $36 billion within the final funding.