Freecharge’s co-founder Kunal Shah secures $30 Mn for new business.
Freecharge’s co-founder Kunal Shah has managed to secure funding of $30 Mn from Sequoia Capital and other investors, according to people familiar with the matter. The funding will help Kunal Shah, who is widely considered as an inspirational figure by budding entrepreneurs, in starting his new business venture.
Sources claimed that the funding round has been successfully closed and Kunal is mostly likely to use these funds for starting an incubator business in the consumer space. Reports about Kunal looking to raise funds for starting a new venture has been doing rounds for quite some time now.
Kunal has been on a sort of sabbatical after Snapdeal sold Freecharge to Axis Bank last year. The 39 year old entrepreneur shot to limelight in 2015 after Snapdeal acquired Freecharge for whopping $450 Mn. That time the acquisition was touted as the biggest ever deal in India’s internet space.
The deal immediately propelled Kunal among India’s top rising entrepreneurs and literally made him into an overnight sensation. However, his meteoric success proved to be too momentary as Freecharge simply could not standup to the competition posed by bigger rival Paytm.
Freecharge’s fortunes declined further after Snapdeal itself was pushed to the wall owing to increasing competition from Amazon and Flipkart. Sources claimed that Snapdeal simply ran out of money to invest more capital in its core e-commerce business as well as in subsidiary firm Freecharge.
Eventually, the Gurgoan based e commerce company sold Freecharge to Axis Bank at much lower valuation and thereby taking a huge hair-cut.