Media group NDTV Ltd that has been building up its digital commerce ventures said on Wednesday that it has attracted VC funding for its new e-commerce ventures in gadgets and car & bike at a combined valuation of close to $80 million (Rs 510 crore).
It did not share further details on the funding amount but said Inflexionpoint (co-founded by former Apple CEO John Scully), Pramod Bhasin (former CEO of Genpact), consumer-focused VC firm Sixth Sense Ventures, Vindi Banga (former chairman, Unilever India), Hiro Mashita (founder and director of M&S Partners) and other HNIs participated in the first round of funding for the ventures.
It said Gadgets 360° will provide a curated marketplace for exclusive launches of mobile phones and other electronic gadgets. NDTV claimed Gadgets 360° (currently known as NDTV Gadgets) gets over 20 million unique visitors every month and the deal valued it at close to $50 million.
The other property is Fifth Gear Auto, a new auto portal leveraging on the following of NDTV’s car and bike programming. The current auto site was launched a little over a year ago. NDTV said the venture has raised funds at a valuation of close to $30 million.
NDTV Ethnic Retail Ltd, a subsidiary of media group NDTV that owns and operates ethnic wear-focused e-commerce venture Indianroots, had raised $5 million in a Series A round of funding from Mumbai-based KJS Group early this year. At that time NDTV had said the deal was struck at a valuation of $85 million.
NDTV said IndianRoots has clocked a gross merchandise value of Rs 21.7 crore last quarter, over six-fold growth over the same quarter last year.