Flipkart’s new buy worth Rs 1600cr will give it a unique edge over its competitors

India’s online marketplace, Flipkart , bought at least 34% stake in digital mapping firm MapmyIndia.

With this new purchase worth nearly $260 million or Rs 1,600 crore, Flipkart will enhance its logistics, giving tough competition to its competitors.

Flipkart’s senior VP for engineering and head of consumer experience and growth are expected to get two seats on the eight-member board of MapmyIndia.

As Flipkart will be investing up to $5 million in primary capital, it bought a stake of about 32% from MapmyIndia's early venture capital funds - Lightbox and Nexus Venture Partners.

Flipkart, which plans to boost its Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) to $10 billion by March 2016, wants to enhance its delivery ops and logistics by using location intelligence capabilities from MapmyIndia.

The online marketplace wants to use MapMyIndia's data for better address verification, real-time shipment tracking, facility mapping and theft minimisation.

MapmyIndia comes as one of the biggest investments since it acquired Myntra.

MapmyIndia raised around $30 million in funding from VCs like Lightbox Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners and Qualcomm Ventures besides Japanese mapping company Zenrin.