Infibeam to raise Rs 40 Cr from Mukesh Ambani's TV18, posts profit of Rs 31 crore

Distributed e-commerce marketplace provider Infibeam is set to raise around Rs 40 crore ($6.23 million) from RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani-controlled TV18.

The investment will be based on an ad-for-equity. The firm will issue fully convertible warrants equivalent to a 0.4 per cent stake in the company upon conversion, the e-tailer said in a press statement.

Through the partnership, Infibeam plans to integrate multiple platforms of TV18 Group assets to build a large customer base with its differentiated offerings. This partnership will further strengthen Infibeam’s leadership position across the businesses.

TV18 is one of India’s leading media and entertainment conglomerates with interests in television, Internet, magazines, mobile content and allied businesses.

Meanwhile, Infibeam posted a net profit of Rs 30.8 crore on a consolidated total income of Rs 214.94 crore for the quarter ended December 2017. During the quarter the company claims to have registered significant growth in revenue due to increase in a transaction both on digital and payment platform.

According to the financial statement of the company, Infibeam consolidated revenue and profits increased significantly during the December 2017 quarter due to an increased transaction on Digital Platform and VAS services. IWS segment has grown 252 per cent YoY in Q3 FY18 and generated 45 per cent EBITDA margin.

Last year, it had registered a consolidated net profit of Rs 13.6 crore for the fourth quarter, up 489 per cent, from Rs 2.3 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

The Ahmedabad-based firm is one of the few e-commerce firms in India to turn profitable.

Other than its online retail businesses, Infibeam offers end-to-end e-Commerce services on the web to small and large merchants, enterprises and government. It caters to customers across business verticals.

It helps merchants’ e-commerce through its Infibeam Web Services (IWS) including SaaS-based ERP platform for building online stores; digital payment services; logistics solution and also offers many value-added services.

The company claims to have more than 66,000 merchants on its e-commerce platform. The company projects 81 lakh active users at the end of Q3 FY18.

Talking about company's recent growth Vishal Mehta, Founder, and CEO of Infibeam, said that the transaction-based revenue model that contributes to Service Revenues is a scalable model, which is helping the Company earn on every transaction executed on the platform. This is an increasing function of the growth in digital transactions.

He plans to keep the focus on growing transaction services domestically and internationally.

Since last year, Infibeam, after acquiring Avenues India, which runs payment gateway CC Avenue, has been offering e-payment gateway services. CCAvenue offers a multi-channel payment platform with tie-ups with more than 48 banks and has over 1 lakh merchants with annual transactions exceeding Rs15,000 crore.

Infibeam is also eyeing opportunity in GeM as well as Bill Payments space in India where BillAvenue is making a strong headway. Mehta added that the company will continue enhancing merchant and their customers’ experience by building a strong and scalable all-in-one web.