Kapruka gearing to kickstart growth plans
Kapruka Holdings Ltd is confident to cross the 5X oversubscription mark in its Rs. 500 million Initial Public Offering (IPO) which saw high interest even before its official opening.
The registrars to the issue PW Corporate Secretarial Ltd received over Rs. 825 million worth of applications. Dulith Herath, Chairman of this pioneering e-commerce platform told the Business Times on Wednesday that the company was more comfortable in going through the IPO route to raise money to keep its vision intact. “We were tempted with private investments and venture capital but by bringing such investments in, the investors would always drive the company to higher valuations hoping for a better exit. These investors are very exit-driven and fitting into our board of directors would also create different schools of thinking. As the founder, my thinking is to build the company to see it stabilised for a long time and to strengthen our brand. A neutral board will see this vision through.” He also added that through the IPO the public will be making money. “We want to leave something at the table for them.”
A 20 per cent stake in the company, at Rs. 15.40 per share was offered at the IPO.
The company which enables online purchases of goods for its Sri Lankan and expatriate customer base plans to use the IPO for its expansion and growth plans, such as modernising existing technology and infrastructure, combined with launching various Kapruka platform services. Four main Kapruka platform services projects are happening, – ‘Kapruka B2B’ for business-to-business e-commerce; ‘soldout.lk’ for used goods, a platform for Kapruka to function as a distributor for reputable Sri Lankan brands in foreign markets; and ‘Kapruka Partner Central’ for established brick and mortar shops in search of an e-commerce partner with a wide reach.
“We realised that there is a huge demand for e-commerce. In this setting we wanted to raise funds to meet the scaled demand,” Mr. Herath explained.
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