INDIAN e-commerce firm Flipkart’s biggest shareholder Walmart is set to infuse about US$600 million in a new fundraise for the startup, a Flipkart spokesperson said on Thursday (Dec 21).

Flipkart is in talks to raise a total of US$1 billion in fresh funds, the Economic Times reported earlier in the day, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

New investors are also in talks to join the round and the latest funding is likely to value the Indian firm at a premium of about 5 per cent to 10 per cent to its current valuation of US$33 billion, the ET report said.

That would still be shy of the near-US$38 billion valuation that the company hit in 2021.

Walmart did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The US retail giant has been accelerating its growth in India since 2018, when it bought a 77 per cent stake in Flipkart for about US$16 billion, its biggest investment. Two years later, it committed to importing US$10 billion of goods from India each year by 2027.

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Early this year, it increased its control in Flipkart by buying out hedge fund Tiger Global and venture capital firm Accel’s remaining stakes for US$1.4 billion. It was not clear what Walmart’s stake was after the purchase.

Flipkart has grown to become one of India’s top online marketplaces, focusing on small towns and cities, unlike rival Amazon, which has more of an urban bend.

In 2022, Flipkart pushed back its plans to go public to 2023 and internally raised its IPO valuation target by around one third of US$60 billion to US$70 billion, two sources with direct knowledge of the plan told Reuters.