Binny Bansal Planning A Big Comeback With Tech Startup XTo10X: Sources

Just a month has gone by since Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal resigned from his position as group CEO at India’s most valued ecommerce unicorn. And now speculations are rife about his new venture already.

Reportedly, Bansal along with former McKinsey consultant Saikiran Krishnamurthy, is launching a Bengaluru-based tech company – XTo10X Technologies – offering technology tools, learning and consulting services to growth-stage startups which are looking to scale up.

While Krishnamurthy’s LinkedIn profile was updated to founder of  XTo10X Technologies in October 2018, Bansal’s profile shows no such signs yet. Also, Sailesh Tulshan, the personal investment adviser to the Flipkart’s Bansals, and the founder of venture fund 021 Capital, has been appointed as the director of the company on October 3, 2018, according to Tofler.

Krishnamurthy earlier worked with Flipkart for a year between 2015-16 and was the head of eKart (Flipkart supply chain business). Since then, he has held the position of head – Marketplace with Ola for 11 months starting September 2017.

Both the cofounders are said to have invested the initial funds into the new venture. “Still at the concept stage, the company is looking to hire a team by January next year, as it tests out its product with a clutch of startups,” an ET report said.

Krishnamurthy and Bansal could not be reached for confirming the development till the time of publication.

The media sources suggest that platform will be targeting Series B and Series C startups. It will offer them software tools, consulting on a self-serve model, and mentorship and learning – a mix of SAP, Coursera and McKinsey for startups.

In its current form, it will reportedly have three types of offerings: a product suite across strategy and data science to execution, a learning platform with curated courseware, events and reference cases, and consulting and mentoring to help founders.

Binny Bansal resigned from Flipkart in November rather abruptly after he was alleged with charges of “personal misconduct”. While he was cleared of the charge, parent company Walmart, which now owns more than 81% stake in the company said, “that the investigation revealed other lapses in judgement, particularly a lack of transparency, related to how Binny responded to the situation.”

Cofounder Sachin Bansal had exited from the company when the Flipkart-Walmart acquisition deal was announced in May this year. He is now looking to start with his second innings and is exploring sectors such as AI, agritech and fintech.

[The development was reported by ET]