Fab expands Indian ties with new funding deal from Times of India

Design e-commerce site Fab.com is blowing up the web with holiday sales numbers, but yesterday it announced a new kind of money: more funding. And it’s the kind of funding that will help Fab continue its not-so-slow march toward a global takeover.

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The seven-figure deal comes from Times of India Group’s digital arm, Times Internet. The Times of India itself is an English-language daily that boasts the largest circulation of all English-language newspapers around the globe.

Although Fab just acquired Indian company True Sparrow last month — and although Fab CEO Jason Goldberg has longstanding ties with True Sparrow’s founding team — the investment from Times India didn’t spring from existing relationships at True Sparrow.

As Goldberg writes to VentureBeat in an email this morning, “The Times of India Group wanted to get into our Series C that closed in July but they weren’t able to mobilize so quickly. They just made a small investment in a follow-on to the Series C.”

As for any existing relationships between True Sparrow and Times Internet, Goldberg said, “I met [Times Internet CEO] Satyan [Gajwani, pictured] earlier this year and we developed a relationship … There was not a relationship with True Sparrow.”

Goldberg also revealed his and Gajwani’s hopes that Times Internet/Times of India might partner with Fab if and when Fab.com starts selling products in India. And given Goldberg’s previously stated intentions about his company’s growth (as well as its ever-expanding global operations and acquisitions), we can see this happening someday soon.

To date, Fab has raised $150 million from investors far and wide. Although Goldberg revealed the operation was profitable mere weeks into its operations, the funding has allowed the wee startup to rapidly expand, including acquisitions and new operations in Europe.