Bengaluru based India's largest e-grocer BigBasket plans to sell around 50 percent of its stake for about $1 billion.
China's e-commerce giant Alibaba, which holds around 26 percent of stake in BigBasket, is expected to sell its entire shareholding in the company along with a group of early backers. Other investors in the e-grocery company include Ascent Capital, CDC Group and the Abraaj Group.
Tata Group executives said that the company is likely to execute the deal through its digital arm (Tata Digital) and that the investment in BigBasket is just step one of several other similar tieups and collaborations that the company is looking to strike in order to scale its digital presence. The Tata Group had earlier held talks with BigBasket as well as ecommerce companies Snapdeal and IndiaMart; before striking the deal.
However, BigBasket has also held discussions to rope in a bunch of new investors like Singapore's Temasek, US-based Generation Investment Management, Fidelity and Tybourne Capital, for a $350-400 million financing round.
A Tata Group executive, in a blog post said that the conglomerate is looking to acquire internet companies as scalability of business through a combination of online and offline is seen as critical component for future growth. Currently, none of the group's (Tata Group’s) retail businesses have that depth of scale in the ecommerce space.
BigBasket fulfilled 160,000 orders daily during start of lockdown in April, and its base of consumers has steadily grown since then, with the retailer clocking Rs 750-900 crore in monthly sales. The company is expected to close this fiscal year with about Rs 9,000 crore in gross sales.
