Myntra CEO says 'exploring strategic tie-up' in response to Flipkart deal buzz

Since the beginning of this year, speculation has been rife about one of India's biggest online retailers in fashion, Myntra.com being in acquisition talks with leading ecommerce company Flipkart.

Apparently Myntra which has so far raised total funding to the tune of $125 million, is vying for a valuation upwards of $350 million. CEO Mukesh Bansal says, "We are exploring a strategic tie up and evaluating it from all angles with the intent of ensuring that our Myntra brand agenda is accelerated. We are in talks with both strategic and financial investors and have not finalized anything yet."*

Until now, Myntra had plans to grow independently as a company and go for public listing. In an earlier interview to Business Today in February this year, Mukesh Bansal had said, "By end-2016, we want to be at a billion-dollar GMV (gross merchandise value), go public etc. That will be Rs 500 crore a month. So, we see 5X growth over the next three years. That is the lighthouse goal for us."

As of now, the total amount of funding in Myntra stands at $125 million, contributed by Premji Invest, Tiger Global, NEA-IUV, IDG Ventures and Accel Partners. The site has about 50,000 fashion products from over 600 brands.

Reacting to speculation on Flipkart acquiring the company, Mukesh had said in the same interview: "Such speculation flares up because of the common board dynamics. We share two common investors with a large shareholding and also common board members from Tiger Global and Accel (Lee Fixel and Subrata Mitra respectively). Also because we are exploring using Flipkart's services like eKart or its payment gateway PayZippy and listing our private label brands on the Flipkart Marketplace."

*An earlier version of the story incorrectly had Myntra CEO Mukesh Bansal denying acquisition talks with Flipkart. The headline and second paragraph have been updated for this correction.