9. SOMETHING INTERESTING:
On 8 April 2015, Snapdeal acquired
Freecharge which is being referred as
the biggest take over in Indian E-
commerce sector so far and the biggest
Venture Capital exit in India till date.
9
10. The deal is expected to be
anything around
US$400 to 450 million
i.e. About Rs.2800 Cr.
10
12. • FreeCharge and Snapdeal were founded
in 2010 in Mumbai and New Delhi
respectively. Founders of both knew
each other since then and have been in
discussion for some time now.
12
13. Snapdeal announced that it has
acquired FreeCharge to build the
most impactful digital commerce
ecosystem in India.
13
14. In a joint statement issued by both the companies, the co-
founders said:
“The companies will collaborate to
offer a seamless shopping
experience to customers across
both the platforms offering an even
wider range of products and
services.”
14
16. By January 2012, the number of registered users of
the website were 1.5 million which inc. to 2.8 million
by November 2012.
Now freecharge has over 20 million
users.
16
19. Kunal Shah is an Indian
entrepreneur, founder and
CEO of FreeCharge.
Kunal Shah founded
FreeCharge in 2010 along
with Sandeep Tandon.
19
20. “I started FreeCharge along with Sandeep
Tandon in August 2010 with the aim to
build a business that turned Recharges into
Rewarding Experiences for its consumers.”
-Kunal Shah20
21. Shah graduated with Bachelor of
Arts degree in Philosophy
from Wilson College in Mumbai and
briefly pursued MBA from Narsee
Monjee Institute of Management
Studies before dropping out.
He started his career as a junior
programmer at a BPO start-up.
21
22. Shah's first start-up venture was a
company named Paisaback, which
provided cash-back promotions for
organised retailers.
22
25. • Seed funding of an undisclosed
amount from Tandon Group
and Sequoia Capital in 2010.
25
26. Company secured funding of
INR 200 million from Sequoia
Capital in 2011.
In November 2012, the company claimed
to be doing online recharge of INR
6 million on a daily basis, approx to INR
2.19 billion a year.
26
27. In September 2014 Freecharge received
$33Million Series B Funding from
Sequoia Capital, Sofina and Ru-Net.
One of the biggest fund raising by an
Indian Technology Start-up.
27
30. Freecharge Rewards Its
Users
The amount paid by the
users
for recharge is returned in
form of shopping
coupons of some of the top
retailers in India, thereby
making the recharge
30
31. The first two retailers for
which
coupons
were
available
were McDonald's
and Barista
Lavazza. 31
66. FreeCharge is 128 bit EV SSL secured
All transactional & personal card details added while doing
online recharge will always be safe & secure.
Secured by Norton
The Norton checkmark denotes the highest level of trust,
which means that the online recharges can be made
securely with complete peace of mind.
66
76. Paying Electricity Bills Online.
Paying Phone bills Online.
Booking the LPG Gas Cylinders.
Top up Delhi Metro Travel Card.
76
77. In March 2013,
FreeCharge tied
up with production
houses Sony Pictures, Yash
Raj Films, UTV Motion
Pictures and Viacom 18 to
promote their upcoming
movies through its portal.
77
80. In May 2013, the company in association with
TheViralFever.com (TVF), an online youth
entertainment network, launched a video
on YouTube which was a spoof of Emotional
Atyachaar, a TV show.
80