Quikr.com raises Rs 548 cr in private equity

Mumbai – Online and mobile classifieds firm Quikr.com is reported to have raised about $90 million (Rs 548 crore) private equity fund led by Swedish firm Kinnevik.

Quikr competes with Naspers-backed Olx.in and is mostly into buying and selling of used or second hand goods. The fund raise is also an indication that the used goods market in India is growing as consumers cut down on discretionary spending due to slowdown.

The Mumbai-based firm is founded by Pranay Chulet, an IIT and IIM alumnus. The firm is also backed by PE players such as Warburg Pincus, Norwest Venture Partners, Ebay and Nokia Growth Partners who also participated in this funding round.

A few weeks ago online market place Snapdeal snapped a $134 million investment from Ebay and others. Prior to that Flipkart, Myntra and Jabong have raised about Rs 3,600 crore of private equity thus signalling the high growth prospects of the ecommerce players.

Quikr, with a presence in across over 1,000 cities in India, registers listings for categories like jobs, automobiles, used goods, services and electronics.

The company had last month tied up with Amazon India’s comparision site Junglee.com where consumers can get to compare prices of even used goods.

The company will be officially announcing the development later in the day.