Flipkart co-founder and former chief executive officer Sachin Bansal is looking to raise a fund of ₹4,802 crores ($700 million) to ₹6,860 crores ($1 billion) to invest in startups, as told by the sources. It is also anticipated that he will be using the money he received from the sale of his 5.5% stake in Flipkart to contribute up to 40% of the fund. The fund is expected to be launched by the end of the year.
According to the sources, Sachin Bansal is also considering investing in and running, an artificial intelligence startup, although the name of the startup was not ascertained.
Sachin Bansal had started Flipkart in 2007 from his apartment in Koramangala, along with his business partner, Binny Bansal. He was considered to be the visionary mind behind the e-commerce giant. After the acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart in a whopping $16 billion deal to buy 77% stake, big investors like SoftBank, and Accel Partners made a healthy exit from Flipkart.
The Flipkart co-founder was also forced out of the company after differences arose with the company’s then board members regarding his role after the Walmart acquisition.
The 37-year-old entrepreneur had penned down his thoughts in a Facebook post after his exit. In his post, he hinted at finishing some of his early projects that he didn’t have the time while he was focused on Flipkart.
“I’ll be watching and cheering from the outside—Flipsters, you better continue to do a good job! I’ll be taking some long time off and focus on finishing a few personal projects which I haven’t been able to find time for. Will catch up on gaming (and see what kids are playing these days) and brush up on my coding skills,” Sachin Bansal said in his Facebook post.
Sachin Bansal is not new to investing in the Indian startups market, some of his popular investments include the country’s largest learning platform Unacademy, News aggregator InShorts, and Healthtech startup SigTuple among few others. His return to the startups market as an entrepreneur or an investor is keenly awaited by everyone involved in the startup ecosystem.