Financial Market Signalling By Indian E-Commerce Companies

In the last few years, the Indian e-Commerce firms have attracted a lot of interest from the venture capitalists and private equity investors, both locally as well as internationally. Several high-ticket investments have been in the news. The purpose of the practice paper is to study the various market signaling mechanisms that firms use to communicate with the potential investors. Market signaling is a phenomenon where analysis is made to understand specific signals given out to generate inferences. This paper attempts to arrive at few inferences and analyze the underlying strategies in the start-up funding space in India with reference to timelines and various operating, financial and strategic signals given out to the public, through the post-facto event-wise analyses of the communication of four firms and the nature and timing of investments from private equity and venture capital investors.