Now, Snapdeal heads to the US with a big bang

In a bid to strengthen its technology arm, Snapdeal is looking to set up a base in the United States. This step will make it the first Indian consumer internet company to establish a presence the world’s biggest start-up hub.

For this, Delhi-based online marketplace is also mulling to hire more specialists.

However, the step is still at an exploratory stage and could see the company either set up its own office or acquire a small company in areas like mobile services and internet technology.

"If we do acquire, it will be a company, with a small group of highly-talented people. I don't know yet what field it will be in, but we'll decide in course of time," Rohit Bansal, co-founder of Snapdeal, told Economic Times.

Meanwhile, Bansal added that it won’t happen right now and the company would see what will it take to set up a base there.

An IIT-Delhi graduate, Bansal, teamed up with schoolmate Kunal Bahl, to cofound Snapdeal in 2010.

Bansal is also mulling to hire key talent from Silicon Valley in areas such as technology product management and design.

"We are looking to bring people on board who have the experience to handle scale," Bansal told ET.
Flipkart and Snapdeal have been aggressively poaching talent from Silicon Valley firms like Google and Yahoo as they compete for top honours in a market where
Amazon is a key contender.

"They (online retailers) are spending as much on technology, as brick-and-mortar retailers are on real estate. Savings on real estate are being spent on technology," Pinaki Ranjan Misra, national head of retail & consumer products practice at EY, told the financial daily.

ET reported Snapdeal has been the fastest off the blocks in growing through acquisitions having also picked up luxury fashion portal Exclusively.in, social product discovery platform Doozton and gifting recommendation venture Wishpickr.

If Snapdeal does acquire a Silicon Valley-based company, the strategy would follow that of Alibaba Group, which is actively acquiring assets in the US.

(Image: Reuters)