Snapdeal, Alibaba - Current Affairs Questions and Answers

ANSWER: Govind Rajan

Explanation:
FreeCharge CEO Govind Rajan has resigned from the company within 9 months of his appointment as payment subsidiary of online marketplace Snapdeal.

Snapdeal, run by Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, has been trying to independently raise funds for FreeCharge but the company has struggled to attract investors in the past six to 10 months.

FreeCharge, which provides digital payments services, was acquired by Snapdeal for $450 million in April 2015 and appointed Rajan as the chief executive in May 2016.

Govind has brought incredible energy and focus in growing FreeCharge. The pace of progress will continue with the strong team that he has built.

Jason Kothari will oversee the business operations of FreeCharge as part of his overall responsibilities of portfolio management as the chief strategy and investment officer of Snapdeal.

Rajan was initially hired as the chief strategy officer of Snapdeal, prior to which he was at Bharti Airtel Ltd as its chief marketing officer and chief executive of Airtel Money.

He also worked at Hindustan Unilever Ltd for over 15 years.

Numerous high-level exits at Snapdeal, include Sandeep Komaravelly, head of peer-to-peer marketplace Shopo; Tony Navin, head of partnerships and strategic investments; and Abhishek Kumar, head of corporate development, mergers and acquisitions and investments.

Backed by Japan’s Softbank Group, which holds close to 33% in the company, Snapdeal has also received funding from Kalaari Capital.

Other funders are Nexus Venture Partners, eBay Inc., Foxconn Technology Group and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal now have a stake of less than 6.5% in the company, which has raised around $2 billion since its inception.

ANSWER: Alibaba Group

Explanation:
Chinese online retailer Alibaba Group opened its Australian and New Zealand headquarters in Melbourne on 4^th Feb 2017.

This marks its first expansion in the region as it seeks to tap growing global demand for products from the two countries.

The group's billionaire founder Jack Ma said he hoped the e-commerce giant would help Australian and New Zealand businesses expand.

There are more than 1,300 Australian and 400 New Zealand brands on Alibaba's Tmall and Tmall Global.

Alibaba Group's vision for the ANZ region is to build the entire operating infrastructure needed to enable local businesses to expand globally.

Further growth is planned in the areas of cloud computing, payments, digital entertainment and logistics.

Alibaba also signed a memorandum of understanding with Australia Post aimed at streamlining logistics between Australia and China.

It aims at developing the first Australian marketplace within Alibaba's Lazada eCommerce Network in Southeast Asia.

ANSWER: Jason Kothari

Explanation:
Ex Housing.com CEO Jason Kothari has been appointed the head of the Snapdeal strategy and investment operations.

This is following the merger of the realty portal with PropTiger.

Snapdeal's Chief Strategy and Investment Officer Kothari will work alongside Kunal Bhal and Rohit Bansal in a leading role.

Kothari will join Snapdeal on Jan 16, 2017. Both Housing.com and Snapdeal are backed by SoftBank.

Kothari's responsibilities will include:

• Leading strategy.
• Corporate development, including all investments and strategic partnerships.
• Raising new capital for the company and portfolio management.
• Overseeing companies that Snapdeal wholly owns or has invested in.

Housing.com announced merger with News Corp-backed real estate brokerage firm PropTiger.

The joint entity raised USD 55 million from Real Estate Australia (REA) Group and Softbank.

Before Housing.com, Kothari was CEO and Vice Chairman of character-based entertainment company Valiant Entertainment.

Know More about Snapdeal

• Type of business: Private
• Type of site: E-commerce
• Founded: 2010
• Headquarters: New Delhi, India
• Founders: Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal
• Industry: Internet
• Subsidiaries: FreeCharge
• Website: www.snapdeal.com

ANSWER: Vijay Ghadge

Explanation:
Vijay Ghagde has joined the Vulcan Express, a captive logistics unit of Snapdeal as the CEO

• He was earlier the COO of e-commerce logistics company Go-Javas
• Snapdeal holds 42 percent stake in GoJavas.
• It is strengthening its supply chain and logistics capabilities investing INR 240 crore in Go Javas in 2 subsequent rounds in 2015
• GoJavas was the logistics arm of Rocket Internet backed fashion retailer and is the largest logistics partner for Snapdeal

ANSWER: Puravankara

Explanation:
Snapdeal, a leading online marketplace and Puravankara, which is among the top-5 listed real estate developers in the country, have announced the launch of a 'Managed Residences Plan' for their customers in association with international property consultancy JLL India.

• The three-way partnership will enable customers to purchase a ready-to- occupy apartment from Puravankara across Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore and Kochi and lease it back Puravankara for a contracted term of seven years.
• As a part of the contract, Puravankara will secure pre-agreed monthly rentals to the customer and pay the common area maintenance amount to the building association.

ANSWER: Anand Chandrasekaran

Explanation:
Snapdeal’s chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran has quit the company. The news was announced by Snapdeal co-founder Rohit Bansal on his Twitter handle.

• He is expected to start his own company.
• Before joining the e-tailer in June 2015, he was with Bharti Airtel where he led product strategy for music streaming service Wynk and Airtel Money

ANSWER: Technology

Explanation:
Snapdeal has made it mandatory for logistics partners to integrate with the technology platform. E-commerce firm has invested USD 300 million or INR 2000 crore in logistics tech in the remaining two years. It is linked to plug and play online platform for facilitating integration and cutting down reliance on manual procedures.

• Meanwhile rival company Flipkart is expected to spin off logistics vertical E-Kart into a separate vertical
• Close to 100 million USD or INR 667 crore has been invested by it.

ANSWER: Srinivas Murthy

Explanation:
Srinivas Murthy, the senior Vice President of Marketing at e-commerce major Snapdeal has placed in his papers to commence with his own venture. The details of the new venture were not disclosed. This follows the resignation of Head of Strategy Ranjan Kant who left to join Jabong as the CMO. Anand Chandrasekaran, ex-CPO Bharti Airtel, Gaurav Gupta, formerly the India Head of Bay area start-up Scalearc and Bhuvan Gupta, ex-CTO of BSB Portal (JV between BSB and Yahoo Japan) have joined Snapdeal in the past one year.

ANSWER: Snapdeal

Explanation:
For overcoming language barriers and shopping online in the regional language they prefer, Snapdeal users can now try its multilingual interface. Snapdeal’s user interface on mobile will soon be available in English and 11 regional languages w.e.f January 26th. Snapped has now expanded the reach to 130 million smartphone users in the country.

ANSWER: Anup Vikal

Explanation:
E-commerce major Snapdeal on 20th October 2015 announced appointment of Anup Vikal as its chief financial officer. Vikal was earlier the CFO at telecom major Aircel. He will be replacing Aakash Moondhra. In August 2015, Snapdeal raised $ 500 million led by Foxconn and Alibaba and existing investors like SoftBank also took party. Prior to joining Aircel, Vikal was group-CFO & head of strategy and IT at InterGlobe Enterprises. He had earlier worked for Colt Technology for three years and headed finance division at Bharti Airtel for around seven years. He has a bachelor's degree in engineering from NIT Surat and MBA from a South Gujarat university.