Quikr, one of the largest online classified marketplace in India, has been looking forward to going public in 2021. The founder and CEO, Pranay Chulet, told Business Standard that the company is preparing for its Initial Public Offering (IPO) but has not decided on its country of listings yet. As of now, the Bengaluru based firm has raised $352.8 million in funding from investors like Matrix Partners, eBay, Nokia Growth Partners, Tiger Global, and so on. The company claims to have a unique visitor count of 30 million per month.
Quikr, founded in 2008, is a classified website that has spread its verticals across various domains like home rentals, grocery, beauty services as well as online recruitment. The firm has been extending its verticals slowly and steadily ever since the company’s launch. It is currently present in more than 1,200 cities with more than 30 million monthly unique visitors.
Quikr- Growing via Acquisitions
The company has acquired over 15 startups, the latest being Zefo, a used goods marketplace, for $28.1 million. It has been following an acquisition-led strategy to enhance its growth.
Quikr has been merging its subsidiaries to maximize its profitabilities. The group’s parent company, Quikr India Pvt Ltd, reported overall revenue of $24.54 million for the year ending March 2018. This is a jump for its revenue from operations by 95% in the previous year. Currently, the firm’s acquisitions contribute 55% to its revenue.
The company has said that it will be working towards its revenue growth aggressively as well as minimize its losses. Furthermore, the company has been aiming to achieve breakeven in a year’s time duration.
The previous year, Swedish investor, AB Kinnevik marked down the valuation of the Bengaluru based company by 12% to $884.94 million in its annual report 2017. The valuation of his shares in Quikr is based on the value inferred by cash transactions made in secondary Quikr shares with several preferential rights and can be associated with the currency fluctuation.
However, Pranay Chulet, CEO & founder, recently reported that the company is valued at $1.1 billion. Currently, major competitors for Quikr are 99acres.com, Housing.com, Proptiger.com, Square Yards, OLX, Oodle, OfferUp, and Clickin.
2018, the Year for IPOs
2018 proved to be a blockbuster year for IPOs in India by startups, betaing the already great record of 2017. In 2017, 122 companies raised an astonishing amount of $10.85 billion through IPOs.
In an IPO Readiness Survey conducted by Ernst & Young India, the IPO activity in India showed a comparatively higher level and saw 90 IPOs raise $3.9 Bn, driven by solid activity in Q1 18. However, not much activity has been reported this year.
Recently a number of startups have lined up to raise funds through IPOs while others like IndiaMart, Matrimony, E2E Networks, etc. have had a successful IPO launch but not on Startup platforms. Alphalogic Techsys & Transpact recently listed themselves on BSE startup platform. Interestingly enough, Chennai based Software-as-a-Service unicorn Freshworks has also been working towards an IPO as early as 2021. The listing is expected to be presented on NASDAQ, a New York-headquartered stock exchange
