Binny Bansal Offloads More Of His Flipkart Stake To Walmart

Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal has reportedly sold more of his Flipkart stake to the US retail giant Walmart, who has acquired the Indian ecommerce firm in August 2018.

According to an ET report, Binny has sold 539,912 of his equity shares to a Luxembourg-based Walmart entity for $76.4 Mn. The recent deal has brought down his stake in Flipkart to 3.52% from the earlier 4.2% in November 2018.

The report also noted that Binny’s contract with Walmart entitles him to sell more than half of this equity shares by August 2020. This could result in about $400 Mn in earnings for Binny.

Other minority stakeholders in Flipkart include Tencent (5.37%), Tiger Global (4.77%), Microsoft (1.53%), Accel (1.38%), Iconiq Capital (0.98%), Temasek (0.29%), UBS (0.19%). While, Walmart holds an 81.3% equity stake.

When compared with the equity stakes all these investors had in Flipkart before the acquisition , it is found that all these investors have sold their stakes to Walmart either partly or in full.

Earlier today, Walmart was also reported to be planning to take Flipkart public in the US by 2022. The US-based company is said to be facing trouble in making Flipkart profitable because of the country’s new FDI ecommerce guidelines and a discount-led market.  

Binny Bansal’s Second Innings 

Binny had resigned as the CEO of the Flipkart Group in November 2018, after an allegation of “serious personal misconduct.  Post which, Binny has been an active investor in the Indian startup ecosystem and have also cofounded a new venture Xto10X in December 2018. Xto10X is aimed at offering technology tools, learning and consulting services to growth-stage startups.

Some of the notable investments by Binny include healthtech startup SigTuple, digital insurance company Acko, supply chain management startup Increff and legaltech company Spotdraft.

He is also a backer in an early stage investment firm 021 Capital, which had recently announced its first close of $32 Mn. Along with recent investment in a Singapore-based venture fund Tanglin Venture Partners, which is focussed on investing in India and Southeast Asia-based technology startups.

Earlier in April, Bansal had also invested in an India-focussed fund — The Collective, which was launched by the US-based curated closed marketplace for startups and investors AngelList. The Collective has aimed to invest about INR 1 Cr each in 60-80 startups annually.