Freecharge founder Kunal Shah planning to raise fresh funds for his new startup.
Kunal Shah recently managed to raise quite a few eye brows on Twitter after his tweets revealed that he is in the midst of a plan to start a new startup in 2018. Now latest media reports claim that the famed entrepreneur is looking to raise close to $30 Mn from various investors for his new venture.
Sources close of Shah have disclosed that some of the investors willing to back up his new venture are Sequoia Capital, Russian fund Ru-Net, fintech focused fund Ribbit Capital and few other individual investors.
Although there is still not much information available about what shah’s latest startup is all about, but speculations are rife that his latest startup may be incubator or a lab in key sectors like consumer finance, healthcare and education.
However, shah while speaking to one of the leading news publication said that he is still flirting with many promising ideas and his startup is yet to have a concrete shape.
But who is Kunal Shah really?
Kunal shah doesn’t really need introduction especially to those who are regular followers of India’s startup ecosystem. But for those who are not, shah’s biggest achievement till date is founding of digital wallet firm Freecharge and then successfully selling it to Snapdeal.
He sold his digital wallet firm to Snapdeal in 2015 for whopping $450 Mn, which still remains one of the biggest deals in India’s internet space. The deal made shah an overnight poster boy for India’s aspiring startup entrepreneurs.
However, shah lost much of that sheen during Snapdeal’s downfall last year and, more importantly, when Snapdeal was forced to take a huge haircut in Freecharge’s sale out to Axis Bank. The gurgoan based e-commerce firm sold Freecharge for merely $60 Mn, taking a haircut of almost $400 Mn.
Nonetheless, shah still continues to serves as an inspiration for millions of entrepreneurs even today.
