Accel, Tiger Global mulling to exit e-commerce firm Flipkart: Report

Private equity firms Accel and Tiger Global are in talks to sell their remaining stake in ecommerce company Flipkart to its parent Walmart Inc for about $1.5 billion, The Economic Times reported on Thursday. These two were among the two early backers of the company.

Accel owns a little over 1 per cent of Flipkart, while Tiger Global holds about 4 per cent of the company. The stake would raise Walmart’s ownership in the e-commerce giant, ET reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

“They (Accel and Tiger) want to sell and exit now fully. The discussions are moving ahead and the transaction will close in due time,” a person familiar with the matter told the publication.

“It is a significant moment for both Accel and Tiger Global having taken an (early) bet on the company and now leading to another cash exit,” they added.

Walmart acquired a majority stake in Flipkart for about $16 billion in 2018 – its biggest deal ever – and later that year said it could take the company public in four years.

In April 2022, Reuters had reported that Flipkart had internally raised its IPO valuation target by around a third to $60 billion-$70 billion, and was planning a US listing in 2023.

At the time of the Walmart acquisition of Flipkart in 2018, Tiger Global had earned about $2 billion (current dollar-rate) from its partial stake sale.

Flipkart group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy was also a former executive Tiger Global and was involved in the Flipkart investment along with Fixel. He joined the e-commerce firm as the chief financial officer (CFO).