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Portrait of Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal

Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal

Flipkart

India’s largest e-commerce marketplace · Bengaluru, India

Portrait: Shahanadg / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

$16B for 77%
Majority acquired by Walmart
2018
Acquisition
Asia-Pacific
Regional desk

The founder

Sachin and Binny Bansal (no relation), both IIT Delhi computer science graduates and former Amazon India employees, founded Flipkart in October 2007 as an online bookstore, operating out of a Bengaluru apartment with roughly ₹400,000 in initial capital. It grew into India’s dominant e-commerce platform, going head-to-head with Amazon.

How it was sold

Walmart announced its acquisition of a 77% majority stake in Flipkart for $16 billion on May 9, 2018 — the largest e-commerce acquisition globally at the time and Walmart’s biggest-ever deal, valuing Flipkart at roughly $20.8 billion. Sachin Bansal sold his entire stake for about $1 billion and exited the company; Binny Bansal stayed on as CEO of the Flipkart Group before resigning later that year.