US firm marks down its shares in Flipkart

Bengaluru: US investment firm T Rowe Price has marked down its shares in India's largest e-commerce company Flipkart by 15%.

This is less than the 27% markdown in February by American financial services firm Morgan Stanley, but it signals nonetheless the increasing scepticism about valuations of many new-age ventures across the globe. T Rowe Price has also marked down its shares in cab aggregator Uber, the world's most highly valued privately held firm, by 6%, and that in home rental platform AirBnB to the same extent.

T Rowe Price, which first invested in Flipkart at the end of 2014, has valued the e-commerce firm's shares at $120.70 a piece as of the March quarter, down by 15% from $142.37 late last year. This would value Flipkart at about $13 billion, down from the $15.2 billion valuation that Flipkart had in its last fund raise, of $700 million, in July last year. Morgan Stanley's markdown valued Flipkart at $11 billion.

An email sent to Flipkart on the matter did not elicit a response at the time of going to print.

Several analysts told TOI that the two markdowns could compel Flipkart to raise its next round of funding at a price lower than the July raise. Flipkart needs more capital to fight Amazon, which has put enormous focus on India and is backing that up with billions of dollars of investments. In the past fiscal, Flipkart pledged assets worth Rs 1,850 crore with commercial banks for credit lines.

Flipkart has so far raised $3.4 billion and it counts some marquee names among its investors, including Tiger Global, Naspers, GIC of Singapore, Qatar Investment Authority and Yuri Milner's DST Global. It is believed to be trying to raise another round of $1 billion.