Swedish investor AB Kinnevik, a key shareholder in online classifieds platform Quikr, has cut its estimate of the firm’s valuation by 12% as of 31 December 2017.
Kinnevik, which holds an 18% stake in Quikr, said the fair value of its holding was marked at $159.29 million for the year ended December 2017, according to its annual report. This implies that Quikr’s valuation stood at $884.94 million, down 12% from the year ended December 2016, when Kinnevik valued its Quikr holdings at $180 million.
Quikr has so far raised more than $400 million from investors such as Warburg Pincus, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, and Omidyar Networks among others. Quikr last raised $150 million in a Series H round in April 2015 from Kinnevik, Tiger Global and Steadview Capital, in a round that valued the firm at nearly $1 billion. The firm will raise its next round of funding later this year.
The firm’s valuation seems high relative to its revenue. Quikr had posted an annual revenue of Rs64 crore in FY17, up from Rs41.2 crore in FY16, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
To boost revenue and build stand-alone verticals, Quikr has been on an acquisition spree. It spent millions, mostly in stock, acquiring 13 firms till date. Its largest acquisition was that of real estate portal CommonFloor for an estimated $120 million in January 2016. Earlier this year, Quikr also acquired HDFC’s realty and brokerage portal for Rs350 crore.
Quikr started expanding in early 2016. The firm said it would focus on key verticals including automobiles, real estate, jobs, services and customer-to-customer sales. Each vertical segment has its own business head reporting to chief executive Pranay Chulet.
By December 2017, Quikr’s largest vertical was the real estate category, which accounted for 30% of the company’s total revenue, according to Chulet. Its used car and bike segment accounted for 20% of the total revenue, the services segment (QuikrEasy) contributed 15%, while QuikrJobs contributed another 15%, Chulet told Mint in an earlier interaction.
Source: Mint