Flipkart Raises $20mn From Tiger Global [Guess The Valuation]

Flipkart has raised $20mn from Tiger Global LLC in its Series C round and this takes the total amount raised to $31 million.

The funding will be used for marketing initiatives and the company earlier raised $10mn from Tiger Global (and Accel Capital). Essentially, Flipkart needs to go beyond the tier-1 cities and penetrate deeply into tier-2 and tier-3 cities (which is where they need to get the next generation of buyer/sellers hooked onto the service).

We earlier shared the traffic of ecommerce sites in India and eBay clearly leads the race, followed by Homeshop18.

Traffic of Ecommerce Websites In India

Having said that, Flipkart is making way for a niche startup to come and dethrone it’s (earlier) positioning from being a ‘great site for book lovers’ (circle of life, anyone?).

Is Flipkart an IPO story in making? Or a sweet deal for Amazon to enter India (they have been testing Indian waters) and acquire Flipkart (whose IP lies in backend support system)?
Given that Flipkart isn’t yet profitable (far from being one), the only game is to either hit the public market (so that VCs can exit) or get acquired by a giant like Amazon (so that VCs can exit).
At total fund of $31mn, how much do you think is the Flipkart valuation? Do share ‘your guess’ in the comment section.

At the first UnPluggd event, Sachin Bansal (Flipkart cofounder) shared the Flipkart story on how they didn’t plan to really build a business of this scale (and instead, an affiliate business of sorts).

Do watch the video



Recommended Discussion: Stale Internet Growth in India -Is Offline Promotion the Way to Market Internet Business?

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Put Up Shelves On Yor Mac, with Finder Backgrounds

Put Up Shelves On Yor Mac, with Finder Backgrounds

A couple of months ago, one clever designer had a neat creative idea: create a background image of shelving to use in the Finder window of his Mac. It creates the impression that your folders or apps are ‘sitting’ on the shelves, which is very cute. A few other designers got inspired, and now I can find a total of 12 great ‘shelves’ for your Mac, from five different sources.
The idea plays to the strengths of the Mac, with it’s huge and detailed icons. In any Finder window the icon can go as large as 128 x 128 pixels (note that the 512 pixels size for icons is reserved only for in the ‘CoverFlow’ view, and only in Leopard), and most of the shelves require you set your icons as 128 x 128 (or, for two of the shelves, 64 x 64) so that the icons ‘sit’ exactly on the shelf, and the icon’s name appears on the thick part of the shelves, as you can see here:

Titles appear on edge of

Before I review all the shelves and give you this links, here’s a quick tutorial on how to set the shelves: right-click within a Finder window and select ‘Show view options’. A small options window appears. Under ‘Background:’ select ‘Picture’ and then pick the shelves image that you’ve downloaded. Lastly, you just need to adjust ‘Icon Size’ and ‘Grid Spacing’ so that it matches this:

Use these icons settings with most shelves

How awesome is that? So, here’s where you can snag all the shelves that individual designers have made so far; all of them are free. Hit the links to the artist’s page to download them:
1. Five very funky shelves with themed backgrounds which are: Dark Metal, Leather Brown, Starry Night, Cinema, and Blue. Looks great inside either ‘Applications’ or indeed any folder that has some customized icons. For 128×128 pixel-size icons.
2. Wooden Shelves with wooden panelling and spotlights that will look especially good for the ‘Applications’ folder. For 64×64 pixel-size icons.
3. Studio wood-and-metal shelves looks particularly gorgeous and was designed specifically for the ‘Movies’ folder so as your movies and TV shows will be appear to be arranged on your shelf. For 128×128 pixel-size icons.
4. Two “iShelf” versions in graphite or white are super smooth and can be used as a background inside any folder. The white version works best with colourful and high-contrast icons. For 128×128 pixel-size icons.
5. Dark 3D Shelves contrast a wooden shelf against a very dark background, with some perspective on the left-hand side to make it look as though the shelves are fixed to a wall. For 64×64 pixel-size icons.
Those five links give you 12 great shelves to use within Finder on your Mac, created by excellent designers from all over the world, who offer them up for free for the pleasure-of-use of fellow Mac users. Enjoy!