The great Indian e-commerce wedding we’ve all been hearing about for long is done. The two companies have kept it under the wraps so far but according to our sources, the deal has been completed and integration between the two has begun.

Both Myntra and will operate as separate brands. This was a major point of contention between the two companies as Myntra was keen on operating a separate brand. In between, acquisition talks had stalled due to this.

Back in November 2013, before the deal talks were on, we’d written on why the two companies should explore synergies. The two companies danced for a while. And there was much speculation in the press.

We haven’t been able to confirm the deal size, but the cash and stock deal is expected to be over $250 mn in value. Flipkart is also out to raise another round of funding before it makes it big move to go for a public offering.

In October 2013, Flipkart closed a $360 mn round of funding from investors including Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina and Vulcan Capital and Tiger Global.

Here are some of the details from our earlier coverage.

Common Investors + Margin Boost?

Accel, a common investor in both Flipkart and Myntra, has been known to be a M&A friendly Investor. Take a look at the past:

– Flipkart : LetsBuy

– Myntra : Shersingh

For Flipkart, Apparel is the NextBigWhat category to crack and the company has been trying to catch up with Myntra, which is a market leader in the category. Although apparel is a high margin business, the war between the two would mean large discounts and paying a lot of money to Google for search engine marketing, at the expense of investors.

Flipkart & Myntra : The Common Investors

Tiger Global, Accel Partners and Sofina are common investors in Flipkart and Myntra. It would have cost them all a fortune if the two had continued to battle it out while Amazon on one end and Snapdeal on the other (Snapdeal recently raised $133.7mn led by eBay)

And both Flipkart and Myntra are also notching up losses as their revenues go up.

Myntra Revenues

Myntra posted Rs 134 cr loss on a topline of Rs 212 cr for the year ending 31 March 2013. In the year before (2012), Myntra’s revenues were Rs 67 cr and losses were Rs 51 cr. Flipkart, on the other hand reported a loss of Rs 281.7 crore in the year ended March 2013, up from Rs 109.9 cr in the previous year.

Myntra closed a series F round in February 2014. Table below shows how much each investor funneled into Myntra.

Investors Total Amount Paid Incl. Premium Tiger Global Rs 31 Crore IDG Ventures India Rs 9 Crore Accel Growth FII Rs 9 Crore PI Opportunities Fund – I Rs 155 Crore Sofina Rs 99 Crore

Here’s a look at how sales and losses have grown at Myntra.

FY12 – FY13* FY11-FY12* YoY Growth (%) Sales & other income Rs 2,124,917 Rs 671,614 216 Losses after Tax Rs 1,347,626 Rs 512,631 162 *Rupees in Thousand

Given that after Series F, there isn’t a lot of equity to play around with, merger with Flipkart is probably the only option (there are very few other options for Myntra to explore a merger synergy with, now that eBay is in bed with Snapdeal).

Myntra Funding : Timeline

February 2014: $50 mn from Premji Invest, Belgian Private equity firm Sofina and existing investors. At the time it was reportedly valued at $200 mn.

February 2012: $25 mn from Tiger Global, Accel Partners.

November 2010: $14 mn series B led by Accel Partners.

November 2008: $5 mn from NEA- IUV, IDG Ventures, Accel.

This deal, we expect will happen at over $250 mn with majority being stock.

Launched in 2007, by IIT alumni Mukesh Bansal, Ashutosh Lawania and Vineet Saxena, Myntra had started out as an online personalised merchandising solution to companies before it revamped to its current model in 2011.