The Indian e-commerce leader Flipkart is doing some shopping of its own, and is reportedly keen on buying up LetsBuy.com. Since LetsBuy is one of its main, smaller rivals in the Indian market, then this would be a major consolidation in the industry.
The local tech site Medianama says it has this news on good authority, and that LetsBuy is being valued at US$20 to 25 million. For the moment, the major players on both sides are neither confirming nor denying the deal.
What’s the attraction for Flipkart exactly? Manish Vij, the co-founder of the Vun Network, which was one of the early investors in Letsbuy, told the media:
LetsBuy is the second largest player in the country, and is the strongest competitior to Flipkart. From a comscore standpoint, it has 2 million unique and over 5 million visitors every month, and is among the top four commerce sites in the country.
LetsBuy was launched back in July 2009 and raised $6 million in funds from Helion Ventures, Accel Partners, and Tiger Global later the next year. The B2C site focuses mainly on consumer electronics, but has recently expanded into toys and sporting goods as well. We’ll keep you updated if the deal indeed goes ahead.
In related industry news, Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) long-awaited push into Indian e-commerce happened last week with the launch of its Junglee.com site.
[Source: Medianama]