Online marketplace for ethnic products Craftsvilla is mulling to go public with a $1-billion IPO in the next 18 months.

The company was earlier planning to tap the Indian capital market, but has decided against it. It now plans to list itself on Nasdaq, said CEO Manoj Gupta, who founded the company along with his wife Monica Gupta and three others in 2011.

The company has so far raised $54.5 million in four rounds from investors Global Founders Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital.

Gupta said the e-tailer, owned by Mumbai-based Kribha CraftsVilla Handicrafts, is in talks with bankers, and will hit the capital market by early 2018. Craftsvilla could be the first among Indian e-commerce companies to go for a listing, even as unicorns such as Flipkart and Snapdeal have been delaying their IPO plans on grounds of not being profitable and several regulatory restrictions. Manoj Gupta, a former venture capitalist, told BusinessLine that the company is on its track to become profitable next year and double its revenues in the ₹50,000-crore ethnic product market. It also aims to hit $200 million in GMV (gross merchandise value) over the next one year, up from $100 million in 2015.

Gupta said the company, which started with ethnic apparel, is slowly trying to tap the entire gamut of ethic products, ranging from apparel to food and furniture.

The company has already entered the food segment with acquisition of PlaceofOrigin, an online marketplace for ethnic food items from across the country.

“This year, we plan to make one more acquisition in the ayurvedic product space. We will also launch few more interesting categories by the end of this year,” Gupta said without divulging specific details. However, he believes, fashion will still be the major business with 50 per cent of the revenues coming from this category.

Gupta said the company will let the acquired companies work independently, and rather focus in its role as a marketplace. Craftsvilla has attracted over 32,000 sellers and artisans in the last five years, selling about 50 lakh products, he said.

“We hardly focus on advertising; most of our growth has come organically through word of mouth. However, as we grow, we also realise the importance of advertising. We launched our first TVC last month, mainly to get the trust of users from tier II and III 3 cities, our main customers.”

Gupta attributes the company’s growth to the demand for ethic products and the margins (up to 80 percent) on which these products are sold.

The company is also planning to launch a private label and help little-known brands become global players as it is also looking at expanding overseas markets. It is already operational in Malaysia and Indonesia.