Snapdeal ropes in Jeyandran Venugopal from Yahoo as technology advisor

E-commerce major Snapdeal.com, run by Delhi-based Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, has appointed Jeyandran Venugopal as a technology advisor. Venugopal will be associated with Snapdeal in an advisory capacity and he will work with the leadership team to lay down the company's technology roadmap.

Prior to Snapdeal, he was a vice president and part of the executive leadership team at the Yahoo research and development division in Bangalore. He comes with over 16 years experience and has also worked with Amazon. Venugopal was a part of the team that set up Amazon's India offices.

"Venugopal comes with a rich experience. Technology and innovation are at the core of our company, and we are positive that given his passion for technology, Venugopal will enable Snapdeal to continue to innovate," said Rohit Bansal, co-founder, Snapdeal.com.

"E-commerce is one of the fastest growing sectors in the country today. Having worked in the internet space for several years, I want to use my experience and knowledge of the product and technology aspect of this area in assisting Snapdeal to become the best technology platform in the country," added Venugopal.

Founded in 2010, Snapdeal was started as an online deals site, which later pivoted to a full-fledged horizontal e-commerce company with a marketplace model in September 2011. It claims to have 5 million-plus products across more than 500 diverse categories from thousands of regional, national, and international brands and retailers. Snapdeal has now become one of the fastest growing and among the top three online marketplaces in India, with more than 100,000 vendors.

In October last year, Japanese telecom and internet firm SoftBank Corp (which is the single largest shareholder of Alibaba) committed $627 million (Rs 3,846 crore) in Snapdeal. Its other investors include eBay, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Ratan Tata, BlackRock, Temasek, Myriad Asset Management, Tybourne Capital, PremjiInvest and Saama Capital.

Earlier this month, Techcircle.in had exclusively reported that the company is also in talks with new investors, including international hedge funds, to raise $400 million in a fresh round of funding.

Snapdeal has a 1,000 people strong technology team.