Tiger Global invests in India again, leads $100M funding for online retailer ShopClues

Indian online retailer ShopClues has raised US$100 million in a Series D funding round led by Tiger Global and two of its existing investors, Helion Venture Partners and Nexus Venture Partners.

This is yet another big bet made by Tiger Global on the Indian ecommerce sector. The New York-based investment firm has so far put money into Flipkart, real estate portal CommonFloor, and messaging app Hike – among others.

Founded in 2011, ShopClues works on the managed marketplace model that connects buyers with small- and medium-size merchants online. The company positions itself as a marketplace for businesses from India’s tier II and tier III cities. Around 100,000 merchants are listed on the website, and the company aims to increase this number to 10 million in the next three years.

“We will continue to build technologies and services to enable and empower retailers to participate in the ecommerce revolution that is happening in India,” said Sanjay Sethi, co-founder and CEO, ShopClues.

In the news for the wrong reasons

The Gurgaon-based startup was in turmoil when co-founder Sandeep Aggarwal was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in July 2013. He was charged with insider trading for allegedly tipping off a hedge fund manager while working as an analyst at Collins Stewart in the U.S.

Aggarwal pleaded guilty to the charges in November and was consequently banned by the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) from trading in the country.

Last October, ShopClues was in the news again when a merchant was accused of selling counterfeit products under the L’Oreal brand. The Delhi High Court had barred the online retailer for the sale or supply of goods bearing the L’Oreal brand name.

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