Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce giant, has gone public in a pre-IPO funding round to raise around $1 billion at a valuation of up to $30 billion.

The Bangalore-based startup, which sold a majority stake to Walmart in 2018, began exploring funding options with a few investors earlier this year and has since become more serious, hiring bankers.

The company has also discussed moving its public listing schedule to early next year in recent months. (The company still plans to go public later this year.) A listing takes a few months longer. Last year, Reuters announced that Flipkart would go public in another country in 2021.

Several major Flipkart investors refused to comment on early-month fundraise negotiations, and the e-commerce company did not respond to a request for comment. An early Flipkart investor, who has since sold all its stake, said it made sense that the e-commerce group was planning to raise some capital as the market currently has no shortage of it.

Flipkart, which was last valued at around $24.9 billion when it raised $1.2 billion in a round led by Walmart last year, hasn't finalised the new investment, according to one of the sources, and the deal size as well as the valuation could change.

Walmart announced in November last year that Flipkart and its payments subsidiary PhonePe had hit an all-time high monthly active customer base in an earnings call. Flipkart's GMV growth was affected by a 53-day national lockdown in India in the first half of last year, according to Judith McKenna, President and Chief Executive Officer of Walmart International, in a February earnings call.

"But the business rebounded and exited Q4 with strong momentum, delivering GMV growth roughly double that of the full year," said McKenna, adding that more than 250 million customers in India engaged with the e-commerce platform during last year's festival sales.

The Bangalore-based company competes head-to-head with Amazon. Over $6.5 billion has been invested in the South Asian market by the American e-commerce company. Both companies are struggling to grow rapidly in India, where physical stores still account for the vast majority of retail sales.

Flipkart and Amazon have made a number of bets in recent years to extend their presence in India. Both have introduced Hindi language support (Flipkart has added many additional Indian languages as well) and collaborated with local businesses.