Quikr, is an Indian

online marketplace An online marketplace (or online e-commerce marketplace) is a type of e-commerce website where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties. Online marketplaces are the primary type of multichannel ecommerce and can be a way ...

and

classified advertising Classified advertising is a form of advertising, particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals, which may be sold or distributed free of charge. Classified advertisements are much cheaper than larger display advertisements used ...

company, based in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It was founded by Pranay Chulet. Quikr has listings in over 1000 cities in India in categories such as

mobile phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

household goods Household goods are good (economics), goods and product (business), products used within households. They are the tangible property, tangible and movable personal property placed in the rooms of a house, such as a bed or refrigerator. Economic ro ...

, cars,

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

job Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...

service Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a pu ...

s and

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

. It was founded by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008. Quikr is a free classifieds and

that helps users to sell, buy, rent, or discover anything across India. Community members can come to the site to find an apartment to live in, sell their old car,

bike A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bic ...

, music system,

laptop A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

furniture Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...

, promote their small business, find a tuition class or get a break as a model or actor, join a salsa class, get an audience for a local event, buy any item that they might want or have to offer and make new friends while doing all of the above.

History

Quikr was initially launched as

Akshay Mote Akshay may refer to: * Akshay Anand (born 1957), Bollywood and Television Actor *Akshay Anand Chand *Akshay Chandra Sharma, Hindi writer, poet and a keen educationist from India *Akshay Chandra Sarkar (1846–1917), poet, an editor and a literary ...

in August 1996. Kijiji.in was owned by Kijiji International, an

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

subsidiary. In 2008, Mumbai based venture capitalist, Matrix Partners India, invested in Kijiji India, following which ''Kijiji India'' was hived off Kijiji International and restructured as an independent company and re-branded as "Quikr", which was jointly owned by Matrix Partners and eBay Inc.

Finance

Quikr is backed by

Kinnevik Kinnevik AB () is a Sweden, Swedish investment company that was founded in 1936 by the Stenbeck, Klingspor and von Horn families. Kinnevik is an active and long-term owner investing primarily in digital consumer businesses. Current CEO, Georgi G ...

, Matrix Partners India,

Omidyar Network Omidyar Network is a self-styled "philanthropic investment firm," composed of a foundation and an impact investment firm. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, Omidyar Network has committed over $1.5billion to n ...

, Norwest Venture Partners, Nokia Growth Partners,

Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over ...

and

. In 2009, Quikr raised crore. In 2014, Quikr raised about $150 million, of which it raised a $60 million investment in a round led by Tiger Global with participation from several existing investors and raised $90 million in investment in a round led by Kinnevik. As of 2014, Quikr had raised a total of $350 million from 7 funding rounds.

Partnerships and acquisitions

Pepperfry has partnered with Quikr. In January 2016, Quikr announced it had acquired the real estate portal

commonfloor.com CommonFloor.com is an Indian real estate portal founded in 2007 by three computer science graduates from IIT Roorkee and JSSATE. On 8 January 2015, CommonFloor received funding from Google Capital. On 7 January 2016, the classifieds advertisin ...

and will be merging it with its real estate division QuikrHomes. As of December 2017, Quikr had completed 5 acquisitions for its real estate business. In July 2016, Quikr acquired a Recruitment Tech startup Hiree.com In 2017, HDFC announced sale of its subsidiaries HDFC Realty and HDFC Developers to Quikr India in an all stock deal that will give HDFC 3 per cent stake in Quikr India in lieu of sale of its stake in the two subsidiaries for Rs 357 crore.

Features

Quikr provides an online

platform for users to buy or sell goods and services from each other. Other services offered include a

missed call A missed call is a telephone call that is deliberately terminated by the caller before being answered by its intended recipient, in order to communicate a pre-agreed message. It is a form of one-bit messaging. Missed calls are common in emerg ...

service, and

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.quikr.com/ Information technology companies of Bangalore EBay Online marketplaces of India Indian companies established in 2008 Privately held companies of India Warburg Pincus companies 2008 establishments in Karnataka