The Fall Of The Unicorns

They were all part of the fabled $1 billion plus valuation club. Now they have run into trouble.

- Rajeev Dubey

Mrs Bahl is an avid seller of her specialty biryani on Shopo, the consumer-to-consumer platform set up by Snapdeal on the lines of Alibaba’s Taobao. She also happens to be the mother of Snapdeal’s founder and CEO Kunal Bahl. In 2015, Snapdeal announced it will invest $100 million in Shopo, providing its logistics platform and the payment gateways free of charge to sellers like Mrs Bahl for a hassle-free experience. It hoped to make money through advertising. It never did.

So when Snapdeal was forced to conserve cash, in February 2017, the axe first fell on Shopo. Next, it is believed to have put its payment wallet Freecharge on the block at between half to a quarter of the $400 million it paid to acquire it. About 600 Snapdeal employees have been given the marching orders, founders Kunal and Rohit Bansal have given up their ₹1.5 crore a year paychecks. Yet, Snapdeal continues to bleed. Having failed in its bid to outrun rival Flipkart in the race to No.1 last year, Snapdeal was even displaced from the No.2 spot by aggressive newcomer Amazon, which is now on the verge of overtaking--or, has already overtaken--Flipkart too.