Alibaba, which holds a significant amount of stake in mobile commerce platform Paytm, has already started the process of separating Paytm’s core payment business from the smaller commerce business into two separate entities.
However, Alibaba has not confirmed the acquisition and merger plan, but reassured that they are committed to develop the Indian market for the long term.
Nonetheless, this is not the only development from Alibaba. The company is currently looking to acquire several startups relevant to its business and seems that its strategy is to create a strong entity which can compete against the likes of Amazon India from the get go.
Along with Paytm, the Jack Ma-led company also holds significant amount of stake in Snapdeal. In February this year, it also tried to acquire stake in Flipkart, but no further updates have been announced.
ShopClues was founded in 2011 and in January this year raised around USD 100 million in Series E round and hence, entered the “unicorn” club. Last month, it acquired mobile payments startup Momoe to strengthen digital payments on its portal.
In total, ShopClues has raised more than USD 131.25 million in 7 funding rounds from Tiger Global Management, Helion Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and others.
Along with this news about Alibaba’s interest in acquiring ShopClues, several reports also suggest that Flipkart is also interested in acquiring ShopClues as Tiger Global Management is a largest common investor in both companies. Moreover, Indian ecommerce company Snapdeal has reportedly started exploring a potential merger with Flipkart and Amazon.
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