Ecommerce firm Snapdeal has kickstarted discussions to sell technology solutions arm Unicommerce, The Economic Times reported, citing people it didn't identify.
Snapdeal has initiated preliminary discussions with multiple companies that include Amazon and US-based business and financial software company Intuit, the report said.
The online retailer is seeking an enterprise valuation of Rs 150-200 crore ($23-31 million) for Unicommerce, the report said. Snapdeal had acquired Unicommerce in 2015 for an estimated $40 million, it added.
To be sure, Snapdeal never made any official announcement for the Unicommerce acquisition. However, in its annual report for the financial year 2015-16, Snapdeal listed Unicommerce as a subsidiary.
Unicommerce’s flagship product, Uniware, is a software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based application for end-to-end management of order fulfillment. The application helps manage vendors, procurement, inventory and warehouse.
Email queries sent to Snapdeal and Intuit seeking comment did not immediately elicit a response. An Amazon spokesperson said: "We do not comment on speculation about what we may or may not do in future."
The report comes just days after Snapdeal sold logistics arm Vulcan Express Pvt. Ltd to Future Group for $5.5 million (Rs 35 crore) in cash.
Snapdeal has been cutting costs and divesting assets after it scrapped a planned merger with bigger rival Flipkart in July last year and adopted what it called a ‘Snapdeal 2.0’ strategy in a bid to revive its fortunes. Also in July last year, it had sold its digital payments unit FreeCharge to Axis Bank.
Unicommerce was founded in 2012 by IIT Delhi alumni Ankit Pruthi, Karun Singla and Vibhu Garg. Manish Gupta joined the venture as co-founder in 2013.
In August last year, VCCircle reported that the founding team had quit, following the completion of the stipulated period as per the terms of the acquisition of Unicommerce by Snapdeal.
Following the exit of Unicommerce’s founding team, industry observers had indicated that Snapdeal was likely to sell the unit.
However, Kapil Makhija, CEO of Unicommerce at the time, had dismissed any talk of a sale. He said the firm’s operations were profitable and it was looking to expand internationally.
