Tiger Global exits Flipkart, nets over $3.5 bn from phased selloff

Private equity firm Tiger Global Management has exited Flipkart by selling its remaining 4% stake to Walmart in a deal that valued the e-commerce giant at about $35 billion, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported.

The $35 billion valuation is down from about $38 billion that the e-commerce firm was valued at in its last funding round in 2021.

In another transaction, venture Capital firm Accel Partners also sold its 1% stake in the e-commerce firm to Walmart, The Economic Times reported.

Tiger Global had initially invested $8.6 million in a series B round in 2009 when the e-commerce firm founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007 was valued at $42 million.

The money manager later pumped in $1.2 billion between 2010 and 2015.

In 2017, Tiger Global sold a part of its stake to SoftBank Group Corp, before Walmart acquired Flipkart by buying a 77% stake for $16 billion in 2018 in one of the biggest such deals as the US retail giant sought to tap India’s booming consumer market.

In its transaction last week, Tiger pocketed about $1.4 billion for its 4% stake, taking the overall gains made from its investments in Flipkart to about $3.5 billion, The Economic Times reported, citing people aware of the matter. The distribution details are likely to be released in the next weeks.

Accel reportedly made $1 billion on its $100 million investment in Flipkart.

Tiger Global has made its biggest returns yet from Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com, in which it invested $200 million and sold stakes for about $5 billion.

An email sent to the investment firm did not elicit a response.