The Jasper Infotech board has rejected an initial offer, estimated at $800-900 million, for its troubled online marketplace Snapdeal, from rival ecommerce company Flipkart, according to people briefed on the matter. The development comes days after Bengaluru-headquartered Flipkart, the country’s largest online retailer, completed its commercial and legal due diligence of Gurgaon-based Snapdeal, a process that started about eight weeks back.

According to two sources aware of the developments, talks between the parties are expected to continue. It is, however, yet unclear if and when Flipkart will come back with a revised formal offer.

Flipkart, which had an exclusivity period to make a formal offer till July 3, had appointed global professional services firm EY to conduct the due diligence on its behalf, while Snapdeal had hired Deloitte. The Tiger Global-backed domestic online retail giant has been the frontrunner to acquire the Kuna lBahl and Rohit Bansal-founded Snapdeal in a deal anticipated at $700 million-1 billion, and which was being steered by SoftBank, the largest stakeholder in Snapdeal.

While the rejection of its initial offer is not expected to draw curtains over the deal, the delay will further add to SoftBank’s ongoing wait for the transaction to close, given that the Japanese investor has been looking to clean up its largely underperforming portfolio in the country.It is yet unclear if the decision to reject the Flipkart offer was a unanimous one. When contacted by ET, a SoftBank spokesperson declined to comment, while, both, Snapdeal and Flipkart did not respond to emails asking for greater clarity.

An offer has to be first accepted by the Jasper Infotech board, and then shared with its 20-odd investors, who have to sign off on it.