Snapdeal now has a new umbrella name. It has announced the formalization of a group structure—AceVector Group—that will house all its businesses, which include Snapdeal, Unicommerce and Stellaro Brands. This group formalization comes at a time when Snapdeal has been preparing to go public.
The company’s chief executive Kunal Bahl, however, clarified in a blog post that this move doesn’t change the status quo at the organization. Himanshu Chakrawarti will continue to lead Snapdeal and Stellaro Brands as its president while Kapil Makhija will keep heading the retail-tech SaaS platform Unicommerce.
“… it is appropriate for us to formalise a group structure that highlights the broader scope of opportunities we have been pursuing as a company along with the distinct nature of each business, beyond our e-commerce marketplace – Snapdeal,” wrote Bahl in the blog adding that the new group structure “will bring together innovation in distribution channels, digital-first consumer brands and SaaS platforms.”
After moving out of the regular e-commerce game in 2017, Snapdeal has been focusing on the value commerce segment and targets mid-income and price-conscious buyers. In fact, it’s the only company standing in the value segment after the exit of ShopClues, Paytm Mall and Shopee.
While the company is yet to disclose financial numbers for FY22, Bahl mentioned in the blog that Snapdeal’s delivered volume has grown 88% in the last fiscal year as compared to FY21 with a 65% jump in net merchandise value, which comes after deducting fees and other expenses from gross merchandise value. In FY21, the company recorded revenues from operations at Rs 471 crore while its restated loss for the financial year was Rs 125.4 crore.
As for Unicommerce, it claims to power over 3,000 brands and process 450 million orders annually in the blog mentioned above. Importantly, the company has been profitable for the past five fiscal years. Unicommerce had also raised capital from Softbank in a private placement round. Entrackr was first to report this transaction on December 16. On the other hand, Stellaro Brands appears to be a new initiative from AceVector Group which creates affordable contemporary fashion and design labels.
Snapdeal had filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) in December to raise Rs 1,250 crore from the public market. However, the company hasn’t spoken about the timeline it targets for the IPO. According to sources, the company is likely to delay its listing plan because of the poor performance of Paytm, Zomato and Nykaa on the stock exchanges.
