E
arlier this year, Walmart paid a whopping
$16 billion in cash for a 77% stake in Flip-
kart, valuing India’s pioneering e-commerce
retailer at more than $20 billion. he blockbuster
deal, the biggest acquisition of an e-commerce
company ever, resulted in handsome gains for
Flipkart’s key investors, but where are cofounders
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal when it comes to
India’s richest?
he not-so-sad fact is that they emerged from
the windfall with not enough to make it back onto
the 100 list that they’d cracked in 2015 when Flip-
kart had zoomed to a notional value of $15 billion.
In the meantime, the cutof has risen by one third,
and their own stakes were diluted.
he former Amazon executives, who are not re-
lated and started the company in 2007 as an online
bookseller, parted ways on this deal. Sachin sold his
estimated 5% stake for around $1 billion and exited
the business completely while Binny has stayed on
as chairman and group chief executive, retaining
his similar-size stake. But a billion dollars only gets
you so far (up) in India these days.
In April 2017, ater Flipkart found itself in a
pitched battle with Amazon and its early promise
had faded, Tencent, Microsot and eBay collectively
invested $1.4 billion, valuing the e-commerce irm
at $11.4 billion. It got an additional $2.5 billion
from SotBank in August 2017 in the next phase of
the same fundraising round.
Walmart’s validation this year of a restored loty
valuation, Binny tells Forbes Asia, is the “greatest
endorsement of the ecosystem we’ve built.” Barely
100 million Indians are online shoppers (Flipkart
has 60 million active monthly users), but Binny
aims to double that—and Flipkart’s reach—in the
next few years. (Sachin, meanwhile, is backing
startups and reportedly mulling an investment in Ola, an Indian
Uber clone.)
Walmart’s acquisition is part of a trend of international retailers
investing in e-commerce irms across Asia-Paciic to get access to
those growing markets, according to market research irm eMarket-
er. Amazon has itself invested in or acquired at least six e-commerce
platforms in India, giving it a 30% share of the country’s e-commerce
market, which is expected to hit $33 billion this year, eMarketer says.A potential roadblock looms: he government is con-
templating new rules to ban any discounts on goods sold by
so-called marketplace irms such as Flipkart and Amazon.
Ujjwal Chaudhry, who heads the consumer internet division
at RedSeer Management Consulting in Bangalore, says the
move would shake the conidence of investors. In which case,
Binny Bansal’s return to the top 100 ranks is likely to take
longer. —M.B.FlipSmart But Still Short
BANSALS KEPT BELOWFOR METHODOLOGY AND ALL BIOS, GO TO FORBES.COM/INDIA.THE TIMES OF INDIA GROUP
Binny and Sachin Bansal (not related), creators of Flipkart.OCTOBER 2018 FORBES ASIA | 85