Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart has given several investors profitable exits—including one individual who may have emerged with a phenomenal payout.
Sachin Bansal, who co-founded Flipkart with his friend Binny Bansal in 2007, is estimated to have pocketed between $800 million (Rs5,381 crore) and $850 million (Rs5,717 crore) from the acquisition, according to e-commerce analysts.
Bansal, who served as Flipkart’s CEO for nine years, held a 5.5% stake in the Bengaluru-based company before Walmart bought a 77% stake in it for $16 billion today (May 09). Now aged 36, he was until recently Flipkart’s executive chairman.
At an internal meeting to announce the deal, Flipkart’s management informed employees that Sachin Bansal will no longer be associated with the company, sources told Quartz.
Walmart’s statement announcing the deal included Binny Bansal but not Sachin Bansal among those who will continue to hold a stake in Flipkart.
Flipkart did not respond to an email from Quartz.
“It was an opportune time to exit, and Sachin Bansal made the most of it,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research. “He is an inspiration for Indian entrepreneurs. He actually created something that many others only aspire to.”
The Bansal duo has known each other since 2005, when they studied together at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. They then worked at Amazon briefly before taking to entrepreneurship. What they started from a two-bedroom apartment as an online bookstore is now India’s largest homegrown e-commerce firm, valued at $20 billion. The company employs around 30,000 people.
In 2015, Forbes estimated Sachin Bansal’s net worth at $1.3 billion. And in April 2016, the Bansals became the first Indian e-commerce entrepreneurs to be named among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
Over the years, the two have invested some of their wealth in newer Indian startups, such as smart electric-scooter maker Ather Energy, robotics company GreyOrange, and Team Indus, which was building a spacecraft to compete for Google’s XPrize lunar award.
With his latest windfall, Sachin Bansal might just continue to be the man for entrepreneurs scouting for funds.