Quikr entered $1B valuation club in latest funding round

Classifieds site Quikr, which raised $150 million in fresh funding from existing investors besides a new investor Steadview Capital Management, was valued at around $1 billion.

As per a note by its Swedish investor Investment AB Kinnevik, the company was valued at SEK 7.79 billion. The current dollar value of this is $890 million.

However, a Quikr spokesperson said the transaction was sealed in January when the forex rates were different. In January, SEK 7.79 billion was worth $1 billion.

Kinnevik had also participated in the latest round with an infusion of $40 million as part of a larger $150 million funding, which was announced only early this month. It also saw participation from other existing investor Tiger Global.

It maintained its holding at 18 per cent with the latest funding.

Kinnevik said its own stake had an implied value of SEK 1.3 billion ($158 million currently and around $180 million in January) and the fair value of ownership of its holding is SEK 814 million ($93.2 million currently and around $105 million in January).

With the latest funding, Quikr has raised around $350 million to date.

The new funding came barely four months after it raised $60 million in a fresh round of funding led by Tiger Global with participation from its existing investors, including Matrix Partners India, Nokia Growth Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, Warburg Pincus and eBay Inc, besides Kinnevik.

Founded in 2008 by Chulet and Jiby Thomas (who quit the firm later), Quikr was originally started as Kijiji India. The firm later rebranded to Quikr. It is a large scale cross-category classifieds business with over 30 million consumers. These consumers come to Quikr to sell, buy, rent or find products and services in a variety of categories such as electronics and household goods, real estate, cars, bikes, jobs and services. The firm claims that small businesses across 1,000 cities are using the site.

It recently announced the launch of a new classifieds website for real estate called quikrhomes.com to allow B2C as well as C2C discovery of properties up for sale as well as those available for rent. It is also launching separate verticals and new sites with separate URLs for around half a dozen areas.

Early this year, Quikr launched Nxt, an instant messaging service to enable buyers and sellers to interact with greater convenience and privacy.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)