Canaan Partners will announce investment in Naaptol (our review), and as per this report, Canaan Partners will acquire 25% stake in Naaptol for INR 40 crores (i.e. valuation of 160 crores, which seems quite high).
Earlier, BCCL picked up stake in Naaptol and the company now clocks 3,000 transactions/day and sells 500 brands on its ecommerce platform.
Naaptol started as a comparison engine (monetized via affiliate route) and now carries transactions as well. Company’s growth, it seems is driven by the sudden upsurge of brands (on the lines of *BlackCherries*).
As far as the funding is concerned, I just had a word with Alok Mittal and he mentioned that the numbers aren’t correct at all.
Update: It seems the news itself isnt correct, as per my conversation with Alok.
We have seen this earlier as well, i.e. VC firms denying reports of investment and then they make a formal PR announcing the deal. Hence, the article will be updated with numbers, as soon as we get them.
Recommended Read: ecommerce in India – The Misunderstood Indian Internet User and our earlier series on ecommerce in India.
Final Update: The deal is done. Here is the press release from Canaan.
New Delhi, INDIA, August 18, 2010: Naaptol, a leading home shopping platform in India, today announced the closing of Series A round of Venture Capital funding from Canaan Partners, a multibillion-dollar, global, venture capital firm.
Naaptol is the fastest growing company in the home shopping space and offers services over multiple touch points including print, TV and internet. Currently, Naaptol has a pan India reach of over 200M households and facilitates fulfillment and delivery through its nationwide logistics tie ups. Naaptol has developed robust technology to facilitate all aspects of home shopping including interfacing with multiple suppliers, multiple logistics partners, multiple media partners and being able to provide effective customer support.
The home shopping space in India is poised to grow rapidly driven by several factors including a growing middle class that is increasingly demanding more lifestyle products, lack of significant choice in retail beyond the top cities, and the convenience of shopping from home. With TV penetration as high as 125 million households and internet users approaching close to 100 Million, home shopping is expected to take significant share of the retail shopping market.
Mr. Manu Agarwal, CEO Naaptol said, “Naaptol is a platform that brings together buyers, sellers as well as media companies to facilitate shopping from home. We are delighted to work with a leading Venture Fund like Canaan Partners and the capital raised will be applied directly to enhancing our capabilities and expanding into multiple media formats. We are looking to partner with leading media houses in the country to grow the home shopping category.”
Commenting on the investment, Alok Mittal, Managing Director- Canaan Partners India said, “Building a leading home shopping platform requires capital in the range of Rs 150 Crores and Canaan Partners will contribute a significant piece of this. This is our first investment in the home shopping space in India, and we are looking forward to the difference Naaptol is set to make.”
Dear Ashish,
I have been a long time reader of pluggd.in and quite like the way its coming along.
I had an observation about the number of comments you get for different types of post.
It just amazes me to see just nil, 1 or 2 comments on all articles which announce “ACTUAL FUNDING”.
Just click on your funding tab to see.
Where as VC-bashing, Eco-system bashing attract a huge number of comments.
Now, I don’t find any thing wrong with it. Nor am i asking you for the reasons for it (as there can be many logical ones)
Its just that I think this reflects a lack of understanding amongst us as to why companies get funded.
I think “Funding in India” is such a rare event that it should give a platform like yours huge OPPORTUNITY to discuss “why this company”, “why this fund”, “who could be the individuals involved”, “market size”, “did the team matter” etc. etc.
I may be over-stating a little but i think the day your Funding Articles will start attracting 35-40 sensible comments, you could say that your readers are more VC-ready than ever
This isnt the first time you have taken the anon route. Gyaan like this is free and we don’t give a damn to anon cowards.
- Next time, we will share your earlier comments/IP addresses (as part of our commenting policy).
Curious mind makes good points.
One thing note, however, is that there is a certain sloppiness about these funding articles. Ashish and team need to do more homework before writing them. They should call the investors or the promoters get more facts and color and write the item. All of them are easily available, and it’s sheer laziness to not do the due diligence before writing.
Case in point is this article, where all the numbers are, apparently wrong. Would it have cost much time and effort to either call Alok or folks at Naptol before writing this?
If there is a stimulating article with good, verified content, it would start off a good debate about the company’s space, funding amount, valuation, team etc.
So are the actual funding number greater than, or lesser than 40 crores? Any idea you got from Alok Mittal?
Well I see 04 comments on the article already
05 counting this one
Cool. One anon suppporting another anon.
coming back to the discussion and to keep things in perspective, i had sent out an email to Alok last nite itself asking for r more info on this deal. We didnt publish this until we got an official word from him.. post is now updated with more info; i.e. comment from alok on the deal.
Regd curious mind suggestion on more discussions around mkt size etc, I invite you guys to start the same @ the forum. You need not stay outside the fence and give generic gyaan, you can also act on them.
Welcome to Pluggd.in.
// to keep things in perspective, i had sent out an email to Alok last nite itself asking for r more info on this deal. We didnt publish this until we got an official word from him.. post is now updated with more info; i.e. comment from alok on the deal.//
Easy there…
So, you called Alok and published this AFTER you got official word from him about the deal. And now, Alok tells you that there is no such deal.
What….?
Either Alok confirmed that HIS company did a pretty major funding deal and then called you a day later to deny the whole thing,
or
You screwed up and posted without doing due diligence.
Guess what my money is on.
You are just making a big idiot of yourself.
To keep things in larger perspective, Alok denied Chakpak deal (we were the first one to cover that).
And we wrote about it – and after a few week, Canaan confirmed it.
There is no smoke w/o fire. FYI – IAN deal we wrote about was a pre-announcement..the deal was signed after 2 days of us writing about it.
So You better stop your cowardish comment.., Mr. Know-it-all A**hole.
Ashish,
Please don’t besmirch your own website with derogatory words. Not worth it, man…
Anyways, as I understand – the numbers in your article are probably not right, but despite Alok’s denial, you are standing by the news as reported. Right?
Fine, let’s leave it at that…
(And about the “anon” thing – it’s not as evil or cowardly as you make it out to be. So, take it easy)
You besmirch others and have an issue when being questioned? [You don't have to worry about Pi, I am taking care of it..I am more worried about anon cowards like you who are there to bitch and do nothing else]/
Stand up man..[btw – read our commenting policy, if you wanna become famous).
And you don’t even bother to read the article – It was updated with the fact that as per Alok. there is no deal.
But like I said – this isn’t the first time with VCs. Helion denied smsgupshup deal, but later did a PR.
SO go home and put your money (or bitching advice) wherever you want to. Do your due diligence before commenting.
Next time, be assured that we will adhere you to our commenting policy.
Looks like anon (coward) belongs to THE VC industry..Bitching/trolling is India’s way of doing thing.
@Pl – keep ignoring such morons..they extract more (emotionally/mentally) and are invisible when it comes to adding value.
@curious (coward) could have started a forum topic around the topic he suggested – but he won’t. He will come, take out his frustration, leave..and suck his companie’ ass.
Ashish / others / Anon – I am not sure what the big deal is being made out of here – especially by Anon. It is a news post – and with suitable disclaimers. It comes as a part of the job of bloggers like us. On an average every respected tech blog (including TC) reports 5 such posts per month and atleast 1 of them is off mark. That is accepted.
As for sloppiness in funding posts comment by Anon – do be more specific. We will of course continue being diligent in our data collection – but dont ask us to do your work. In fact most investments I have seen do a lot of “diligence” on the financial side (most being hotshot MBAs) but have (to use an inane phrase) Ghantaa analysis on the technology part. If you want us to do that – pay for it.
I see a lot of angst here my friends – really no need for that.
Anon – if you dont like the articles or PI – please click on X and move on – simple enough to do that.
Ashish – dont get so riled up – maybe anon has been having a bad day.
Beers on me for all .
Thanks for the update.
You were right – the unconfirmed deal, which I doubted earlier, turned to be the correct piece of news.
I guess I should know better than to trust VCs in this regard
Thanks.
Trying to clear some air on this – http://www.venturewoods.org/index.php/2010/08/19/journalistic-over-reach-why-are-we-surprised/
Great. Expect a detailed post over your comments.
Before that, please provide instances of
“deliberate falsification of information on part of the author”
Well, rather than deliberate falsification, this looks like a case of genuine confusion – which arose due to this line “Its not just the data, the news itself might be incorrect”.
See your post above “I just had a word with Alok Mittal and he mentioned that the numbers aren’t correct at all.
Update: It seems the news itself isnt correct, as per my conversation with Alok.”
I clearly have not denied either the numbers or the news itself. I have indicated “factual inaccuracy” and that the news “might” be incorrect.
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