Worldfloat may sell 10 percent stake to raise $50 million for expansion

Home-grown social networking site Worldfloat on Wednesday said it is looking at selling a 10 percent stake to raise $50 million with the aim to expand its technologies.

"We are looking at selling 10 percent stake and will be raising around $50 million to expand Worldfloat technologies to a larger scale and level," Worldfloat founder Pushkar Mahatta said in a statement.

"We are adding about 30 new products in the next six months and we are hopeful of getting a valuation of about $500 million from VC funds. We received a last valuation of about $300 million around a year back, when we were planning to sell 10 percent of Worldfloat to raise capital for further expansion of our technologies. But we have decided not to go ahead and add more products," Mahatta said.

Worldfloat launched as a social network and has 50 million users from all over the world, with the majority from India.

Worldfloat offers about 1 lakh free online movies to watch at a click of a button and a news search engine like Google News and video news platform, which shows viral videos from all around the world with maximum views and an online university with computer and school courses.

(Also see: 'Worldfloat' Indian social networking site introduces news, image search engine)

Worldfloat recently introduced an e-commerce feature, taking on major players like OLX, Flipkart and Snapdeal in the discount deals markets. Mahatta said the new feature, called Citydeals, would allow users to sell and buy products locally.

(Also see: Worldfloat unveils Citydeals 'social plus e-commerce' classifieds section)