E-commerce in India is developing at a remarkable speed; emerging players like Flipkart and Amazon have proven their success stories. Currently, the E-commerce industry seems to be the ultimate winner in the business world. Several E-commerce websites are emerging and taking India by storm. When you are shopping, who doesn’t like discounts and great deals. Thanks to deal websites we have that options. Deals websites are intended to offer exclusive deals and products each time.
Deal websites in India save money and offer great deals while shopping from those E-commerce websites. You know there are numerous great deals online. However, you do not have the time to classify them as good and bad sites. In this article, we will talk about the top deal offering sites. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.
GrabOn is an online coupon and deals website in India that list various offers on online merchants such as Snapdeal, Flipkart, Amazon, Foodpanda, Jabong, and redBus, and updates them on their website. GrabOn declares that there are 4000 coupons from more than 2,000 dealers. It has over 40 million registered customers and receives 25 million page views. It gains commissions from e-commerce businesses for transactions. It is a brand owned and operated by e-commerce commodities company InspireLabs. GrabOn provides genuine and real deals on its platform.
Couponswala
Couponswala Website
Company Name
Couponswala
Location
Bangalore
Founded
2019
Website
couponswala.com
Couponswala offers some great shopping discounts, offers and coupons from some of the most prominent Indian websites like Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm, Makemytrip, and more. It provides coupons for over 1000 E-commerce websites. Couponwala started its journey in the year 2019 and has been offering exclusive and pretty amazing deals to the customers of some popular websites. The headquarters is located in Bangalore. It’s known for providing updated and genuine deals and coupons on its platform.
Mydala
Mydala Website
Company Name
Mydala
Location
Delhi
Founders
Anisha Singh
Founded
2009
Website
mydala.com
This is one of the oldest and most successful deal websites in India for the past six-year. Mydala is offering discounted deals across most of the categories. The company collects a commission as soon as the customer buys or books a deal. After that, the residual amount is paid by the customer at the time of redemption of the offer when he visits the retailer to avail facility. It is targeting over 410 million consumers in over 209 cities in India.
Nearbuy
Nearbuy Website
Company Name
Nearbuy
Location
Hyderabad
Founders
Ankur Warikoo
Founded
2010
Website
nearbuy.com
Nearbuy is a brand owned and operated by Nearbuy India Private Limited, it is a hyper-local online deals website that allows customers and local traders to discover and deal with one another. Giving local merchants and businesses more distinctness and business. It is currently operating in more than 35 cities in India and 18+ divisions and has over 50,000 retailers onboard.
Freekaamaal
Freekaamal Website
Company Name
Freekaamal
Location
Noida
Founders
Ravi Kumar
Founded
2010
Website
freekaamal.com
FreeKaaMaal.com is one of the head deals and coupon sites in India. It is a customer-driven website. Users can post the best deals they find on several e-commerce sites, and then the team selects the best out of them to promote them. Freekaamaal is partnered with more than 600+ online stores including, brands like Amazon, Flipkart, eBay, Snapdeal, Jabong, Shopclues, Myntra, and many more.
MyTokri
MyTokri Website
Company Name
Mytokri
Location
Delhi
Founders
Saurabh Gupta
Founded
2012
Website
mytokri.com
MyTokri is one of the prime online shopping deals gateways in India. Today, MyTokri is a renowned name to find quality online deals and coupons and turn the large industry into an online deals area. It lists thousands of online deals from 200+ e-dealers in India to help you get the most happening deals every day. MyTokri works on the concept of “New day New deals”. They also have a spot on their website where customers can find new and updated deals of the day. It also lists and maintains thousand of active discount coupons for online shopping websites.
DesiDime
DesiDime Website
Company Name
DesiDime
Location
Mumbai
Founders
Mehul Jobanputra & Jimish Jobanputra
Founded
2010
Website
desidime.com
DesiDime is a user-driven community for deals coupons and shopping online. Desidime is created to present a platform for users to cooperate, make friends, and share coupon information to make the best shopping deals. Started by cousins Mehul Jobanputra & Jimish Jobanputra and works as a community-driven social platform where people can contribute to the content, users can upload deals and coupons that they have found on the internet and can help others to save bucks.
Conclusion
There are other sites providing discount coupons and offers for online shopping for customers in India. The deal sites provide coupons for various e-commerce stores such as Amazon, Myntra, Flipkart, and many more for shoppers to get the product/service at a discounted price. With the rise of e-commerce in the country, seems like deal sites are thriving and will continue to thrive in the near future as well.
FAQs
What are deal sites?
Deal sites mainly provide good discounts and exclusive deals while buying products from and services from e-commerce.
Who founded Grabon?
Grabon was founded by Bhanu Raju and Spandan Jaggumantri in 2013.
Which is the most popular deal site in India?
Grabon is said to be the most popular deal site in India.
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Consumer durable financing demand is expanding across India as the country’s urban population grows, brand awareness grows, and disposable income rises. Because it was the only secure and available choice for customers during the lockdown, internet options reported increased usage of financial services.
The Indian banking system is undergoing an unprecedented shift. Digital lending strategies are getting popular, putting banks’ conventional retail lending procedures on alert.
Even though the transition is pandemic-driven, the technology revolution that swept the financial world in the pre-Covid eras was on the verge of launching digital lending platforms. However, the virus made it grow at an incredible rate.
In 2018, Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal formed a financial services firm based in India called Navi. The headquarters of the company are in Bangalore. Digital personal loans, home loans, healthcare insurance, mutual funds, and microloans are all available through Navi.
The business today has millions of users, more than 3 billion apps downloaded, 825 thousand or more investors, 36 lakh or more satisfied customers, and 105 thousand or more health insurance policies sold to date.
Navi is working on a digital lending platform that will make finance-based services more economical, simple, and relevant to everyone. Navi is a digital lending software that offers you loans up to Rs. 20 lakh in an entirely cashless approach. The company’s platform enables customers to access financial services at a low cost through customer-friendly and innovation-driven enterprises in the financial services, banking, and insurance spaces.
IT and consulting services, non-banking financial services such as loans and microfinance, insurance products, and mutual funds are among Navi’s integrated activities. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has also granted the business a stockbroking and investment advisory license, according to the regulatory filing (SEBI).
The duration of the loans offered by Navi ranges from 3 to 36 months. Navi Finserv also offers 2-wheeler, residential, local business, and educational loans in addition to consumer loans.
Navi works in three simple steps:
Select the loan and EMI amount.
Complete KYC using Aadhar and PAN.
Instantly, money is transferred to your bank account.
Navi – Industry
During the projected period, the digital lending market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of around 11.9% (2022–2026). Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, SMEs all around the world struggled to raise funds to keep their operations running during the crisis period.
An important driver that is driving the industry’s expansion is shifting customer expectations and behavior as a result of the numerous advantages provided by the digitalization of banking and financial services. Consumers come from various backgrounds and will need the loan for several reasons, including personal loans, SME financing, and house loans, among many others.
The lending environment has evolved dramatically over the years because of the fast implementation of digitalization in the BFSI business. In several areas around the world, conventional lending is still practiced. The advantages given by digital solution providers, on the other hand, are progressively paving the way for business adoption of digital lending solutions and services.
Furthermore, various technical improvements, such as the widespread usage of smartphones, have resulted in a rise in the acceptance of digital banking across a variety of end-user industries. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud computing are also beneficial to financial institutions and banks because they can analyze large volumes of client data. This data and information are then compared to produce findings on the appropriate assistance that clients desire, thereby assisting in the development of customer relationships.
Navi – Founders and Team
Navi was founded by Ankit Agarwal and Sachin Bansal in 2018.
Sachin Bansal – Co-founder of Navi
Ankit Agarwal
Navi’s Chief Financial Officer is Ankit Agarwal. Ankit Agarwal studied computer science at IIT Delhi and then obtained an MBA from Ahmedabad’s Indian Institute of Management. Agarwal was previously the VP at Deutsche Bank. He also served as VP and Director at Bank of America before founding Navi with Sachin Bansal.
Sachin Bansal
Sachin Bansal joined Techspan after finishing his degree and worked there for a few weeks. As a senior software engineer, he joined Amazon.com India in 2006. He quit Amazon in 2007 and co-founded Flipkart with Binny Bansal, his business partner. Bansal had served as the chairman of Flipkart for over 10 years before leaving the company in 2018. The ex-founder of Flipkart then founded Navi in the same year.
Navi Technologies chief Sachin Bansal announced that the company has appointed Vidit Aatrey as its independent director. The co-founder and CEO of Meesho, Aatrey’s appointment has been effective since April 9th, which is still subject to the completion of some formalities. Abhijit Bose, Shripad Nadkarni, and Usha Narayanan are the three other directors named by the company; Bose is the Head of India of WhatsApp and the founder of Ezetap; and Nadkarni has worked with reputed organizations previously like Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and more. and Narayanan has previous experiences with Lovelock & Lewes Chartered Accountants LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and more.
Navi – Startup Story
After leaving Flipkart in December 2018, Sachin Bansal and an IIT-Delhi alumnus created BACQ Acquisitions Private Limited, which was eventually rebranded ad Navi Technologies Private Limited.
Soon after leaving Flipkart, the co-founder and chairman changed course to continue his mission to make his long-term dream happen. Sachin Bansal had his heart set on another great thing, even as his Flipkart dream came to an end. Bansal’s insatiable pursuit of something new can be observed in the fact that he has only spent a few months since leaving Flipkart without investing in or acquiring a firm, mostly for his current venture, Navi Technologies.
Despite the lockdown, Navi’s founder and CEO invested INR 3,000 crore in his firm and built a personal lending app. Flipkart, like Navi, which has acquired a series of businesses in the last 2 years, was built on a foundation of mergers.
Navi – Name, Logo, and Tagline
Navi stands for “new” which depicts what the company stands for.
The new India is becoming more and more accepting when it comes to the digitalization of financial services and banking, which is what Navi does.
Navi’s tagline says, “Get Instant Loan using Navi.”
Navi’s mission statement says, “Our mission is to provide financial products and services that are simple, affordable and accessible by building a customer-centric and technology-first organization.”
Navi – Business Model and Revenue Model
When it comes to Navi Technologies Business Model, the company has emphasized technology-enabled financial and banking services, as well as the seamless integration of the neo banking model with traditional banking services and assurance. To gain domain understanding, Sachin Bansal has teamed up with fellow IIT Delhi alumni Ankit Agarwal, who is a banker by profession.
“Building a universal bank is a reflection of our commitment to provide financial services to those who need them most. Our vision is to go beyond what hitherto has been broadly defined as ‘financial inclusion and provide access to formal financial services using technology that people can use intuitively and easily.” – Sachin Bansal.
It’s worth mentioning that Navi only operated for 3 to 4 months in FY19. Navi’s NBFC business provided over 72% of this income in the form of interest income and related fees. The remaining 8% and 20% of revenue came from the insurance industry and advisory services, respectively.
Navi – Funding, and Investors
Navi Technologies has raised funding in over 6 rounds the latest round of funding was raised on May 12, 2022.
Date
Round
Amount
Lead Investors
May 12, 2022
Debt Financing Round
$ 72.62 million
–
Apr 13, 2020
Private Equity Round
$26.51 million
Gaja Capital
Apr 2, 2020
Funding Round
$398.99 million
Sachin Bansal
Jan 10, 2020
Venture Round
$30 million
International Finance Corporation
Nov 14, 2019
Funding Round
$117.97 million
Sachin Bansal
Jan 31, 2019
Angel Round
$7 million
Sachin Bansal
Navi Technologies, a four-year-old financial business helmed by Sachin Bansal, is the latest Indian fintech startup to submit a DRHP with market regulator SEBI. The loan-providing fintech business plans to raise INR 3,350 crore in the public market.
According to the DRHP obtained, the IPO offer would be made only through a new share issued. This means that no firm shareholders will sell their shares during the Initial Public Offering.
While reading the DRHP, the fact that Navi Technologies’ promoter, Sachin Bansal, has a massive 97.39% interest in the business was found. Because the IPO offer does not contain an OFS component, he will keep 97.39% of the stock after the Public Offering. This implies he owns more of his firm than the well-known Nayar family, which runs Nykaa.
Navi – Investments
Navi Technologies has invested in 6 companies.
Date
Organization Name
Round
Amount
Feb 10, 2022
Infra.Market
Debt Financing
$30 million
Jul 24, 2019
Kissht
Debt Financing
$6.06 million
Jul 17, 2019
boAt
Debt Financing
$2.42 million
Jul 3, 2019
Bounce
Debt Financing
$1.2 million
Apr 24, 2019
KrazyBee
Series B
$12.10 million
Mar 29, 2019
Bounce
Debt Financing
$4 million
Navi – Acquisitions
Navi Technologies has acquired 2 businesses to date.
Acquiree Name
About Acquiree
Date
Amount
DHFL General Insurance
DHFL General Insurance. is a Third Party Car Insurance company.
Jan 2, 2020
–
MavenHive
MavenHive is a Bangalore based tech consulting firm.
Dec 26, 2019
–
Navi – Growth and Revenue
Sachin Bansal, who has also been the founder of Flipkart, after getting an offer of $16 billion from Walmart, decided to sell his 5.5% stake in the company for Rs 7650 crore. However, this time with Navi, which he founded with a vision to build a financial services behemoth over the next two decades, he remained steadfast, which is the primary reason behind the growth of Navi Technologies. The company is already in the segments of asset management, insurance, and lending and is further looking to expand its horizons. The founder currently owns 97.39% of the company’s stakes, as per the reports dated April 3, 2022.
The Navi company has launched a metaverse-based fund of funds scheme, Navi Metaverse ETF Fund of Fund, with the help of its mutual fund arm. Anmol Como Broking sponsors the Fund of Fund scheme of Navi, which will be managed by Navi Mutual Fund. The Fund of Fund scheme-owned assets will be managed by Navi AMC Limited.
According to the company’s current documents filed, Sachin Bansal-led Navi Technologies became profitable in the fiscal year 2021, achieving a combined profit of Rs 71 crore. In the previous fiscal year, the firm had lost Rs 8 crore.
On August 18, 2023, Navi reported revenue of Rs. 438.7 crore for the first quarter of FY24 and the previous quarter (Q4 FY23). However, there was a 2.3X increase when compared to the first quarter of the previous fiscal year (Q1 FY23).
Navi Technologies Revenue Breakdown
Navi Technologies Revenue Verticals
FY21
FY20
Interest Income
INR 451 cr
INR 143.02 cr
Other Operating Revenue
INR 235.6 cr
INR 40.3 cr
Insurance Business Revenue
INR 92.4 cr
INR 15.7 cr
Navi’s sales increased by over 143% as the firm’s operations developed and the usage of banking and financial services via internet channels soared during the pandemic. The income was Rs 137 crore, up from Rs 56 crore the previous year, 2020.
The company’s total earnings increased by 251% from Rs 199 crore in FY20 to Rs 779 crore in FY21, demonstrating the company’s expansion.
The expenditures of Navi have increased by 217% year on year, from Rs 219 crore to Rs 673.8 crore (YoY).
Navi Technologies Expenses Breakdown
Navi Technologies Expenses Verticals
FY21
FY20
Employee Benefit Expenses
INR 169.7 cr
INR 61.6 cr
Advertising and Promotional Expenses
INR 38.7 cr
INR 1 cr
Other Operating and Admin Expenses
INR 190 cr
INR 95.58 cr
Impairment Loss on Financial Assets
INR 187.2 cr
INR 23.8 cr
Finance Cost
INR 88.2 cr
INR 37.02 cr
Navi Technologies Financials
Navi Technologies Financial Breakdown
FY21
FY20
Operating Revenue
INR 779 cr
INR 199 cr
Total Expenses
INR 673.8 cr
INR 219 cr
Profit/Loss
Profit of INR 71.2 cr
Loss of INR 8.07 cr
EBITDA Margin
30.15%
22.02%
The EBITDA of Navi improved positively. On a unit level, Navi Technologies has been reported to have spent Rs 0.86 to earn a single rupee of revenue during FY21.
Navi Financials – FY19-FY21
Bansal had broken down the lending business, stating that the company’s microfinance loan book was worth Rs 1,500 crore and its non-microfinance loan book was worth Rs 600 crore. According to Bansal, the company was disbursing loans of Rs 350 crore each month.
“We are now comparing ourselves with banks and NBFCs. That is why we describe ourselves as a financial services company that happens to be good in technology. I don’t like the word fintech, lot of fintechs don’t have (lend from) their own books,” Bansal had said.
Navi – Products and Services
Navi App
Navi app was released in 2020, and according to latest news the Navi Mutual Fund has effectively empowered 1 million Indians on October, 2023 by making investing money on the Navi app simple and reasonable.
Navi – Layoffs
According to sources, Navi just let go of 200 employees across the divisions of technology, products, and analytics on July 13, 2023. Employees had no prior knowledge of layoffs, according to sources. Meanwhile, a recruiter reported that the upper management had downsizing plans and that HR policies were in place to make sure that not much severance was needed to be paid.
Company spokeperson said, “Navi conducts performance appraisals twice a year, which results in expected departures from the company. However, Navi continues to have multiple open positions and the company is expected to continue hiring many new employees this year, including a batch of 150+ campus hires who will be joining in August.”
Navi Technologies, owned by Sachin Bansal, is allegedly aiming to file a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI for a 4,000 crore initial public offering (IPO) shortly.
According to sources, the firm plans to make its initial public offering (IPO) in June of this year. The IPO will be conducted purely through fresh share issuance, with no component of an OFS (offer for sale). Bansal owns almost 97% of the firm and will not dilute his holdings in the IPO.
The IPO is intended to aid Navi’s expansion in personal loans, microfinancing, and mutual funds, in addition to its mutual fund operations. Navi is also expected to utilize the funds to fund its expansion goals, which include creating a loan book of 20,000 crores in the next two years and obtaining roughly 15,000 crores in debt from the public markets over the same time frame.
Navi became a public company in February 2022, in preparation for an initial public offering. The fintech firm has enlisted the aid of ICICI Securities, BofA Securities, and Axis Capital to manage its public offering.
FAQs
Who founded Navi?
Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal founded Navi.
When was Navi founded?
Navi was founded by Ankit Agarwal and Sachin Bansal in 2018.
Is Navi NBFC registered?
Navi Finserv (Navi) is an RBI-registered non-banking financial company (NBFC).
How does Navi operate?
IT and consulting services, non-banking financial services such as loans and microfinance, insurance products, and mutual funds are among Navi’s integrated activities. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has also granted the business a stockbroking and investment advisory license, according to the regulatory filing (SEBI).
Who are Navi founders?
The Navi startup founders are Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal.
The days when we had to go to various retail stores to buy things for ourselves are going away. The increasing technology has given a massive rise to retail startups.
With the expansion of digitization, everything is going online. Be it classes, courses, jobs, shopping, or more, all these can be done just with the internet and an internet supporting device.
Many players like Amazon have been in existence for quite a long time. But the increasing adaptation of Indian customers towards online shopping has given a rise to more players in the market.
Now, there are various retail startups in India that are going super well and making great progress. These include Nykaa, MeatRoot, Generico, and many more.
These are the startups that deal in the sale of goods and services to customers. These are responsible for providing the products and services that we need from clothing, food, home appliances, labor, etc.
Some retail startups may also be the producers themselves. The others, however, connect the producers with consumers. The online retail industry has seen a great expansion in the past decade.
These are mostly involved in the retail sale of stuff through electronic shopping which means through their sites and applications. They may or may not have store retailing.
Begging a retail startup can be super challenging for any entrepreneur. This is because of the increasing rise in the competitors and risks in the market. Such businesspersons are the ones who are good at multi-tasking, willing to handle risks, and also survive and thrive in a competitive environment.
Which is The Largest Retailer in India?
Reliance Retail
Reliance Retail Revenue Growth
The name that every Indian is familiar with is Reliance. Reliance Retail is the largest retailer in India. In 2006, the enterprise decided to enter the retail industry by initiating its subsidiary, Reliance Retails. Mukesh Ambani founded this and when it comes to profit it is known to be the largest retailer in India. The headquarters is in Mumbai.
It includes Reliance Fresh, 7 Eleven, Reliance Trends, and Reliance consumer brand.
Top Retail Startups in India
Retail startups have now been existing in India for quite some time. The pandemic gave a great rise to retail industry. It not only strengthened the existing startups but also paved way for the new ones.
The following are the top retail startups in India:
It is a beauty retail startup that sells beauty, wellbeing, and apparel products. It was founded in the year 2012. The founder is Falguni Nayar. The headquarters is in Mumbai. It provides products from brands like Maybelline, Lakme, Loreal, and more. Along with these, Nykaa offers a wide range of products under its name as well.
Its products are available on its website, application, and offline stores. It is one of the most successful retail startups that has now acquired the status of a Unicorn Startup in India.
It is a marketplace over the internet that belongs to the industry of retailing. Myntra was founded in 2007 and has headquarters in Bengaluru. The founders are Mukesh Bansal, Ashutosh Lawania, Sankar Bora, Raveen Sastry, and Vineet Saxena.
It enables the customers to purchase a great range of products. The products include apparel, lifestyle, accessories, mugs, and more.
Flipkart
Founded: 2007 Founder: Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal Headquarters: Bengaluru
It is another digital retail startup founded in the year 2016. Paytm mall provides many domestic and foreign products. Vijay Sharma is the founder. The headquarters is in Bengaluru.
The platform allows the customers to purchase many products at reasonable prices. The products include apparel, furnishing, electronics, and many more.
Blinkit
Founded: 2013 Founder: Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa Headquarters: Gurugram
Blinkit (previously known as Grofers) is an online supermarket established in the year 2013 by Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa. The headquarters of the startup is in Gurugram, Haryana. This grocery delivery platform links the consumers with local stores.
When it comes to retail startups, Blinkit is sure to be a prominent name. It provides a great variety of products. These include foodstuffs, fruits and vegetables, bakery, beauty, and more.
Lenskart
Founded: 2010 Founder: Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, and Sumeet Kapahi Headquarters: Faridabad
It is an Indian eyewear marketplace established in the year 2010. The founders are Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, and Sumeet Kapahi. The headquarters is in Faridabad, Haryana. This allows customers to have direct access to their preferable eyewear.
Founded: 2012 Founder: Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee Headquarters: Mumbai
It is an operator of an online retail platform for cosmetics. It came into existence in the year 2012. Founders are Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee. The headquarters is in Mumbai. The products offered by Sugar Cosmetics are available online and in offline stores too.
It offers a great collection of cosmetic products like lipsticks, eyeliners, concealers, and many more. It is the quickest growing startup in the field of beauty in India.
Bombay Shaving Company
Founded: 2015 Founder: Shantanu Deshpande and Rohit Jaiswal Headquarters: New Delhi
It is a specialty retailer of grooming products for both men and women. It was founded in the year 2015 by Shantanu Deshpande and Rohit Jaiswal. The operational center is in New Delhi.
The startup’s products have become a popular choice of many. Its products include razors, lotions, grooming kits, and more.
Chumbak
Founded: 2010 Founder: Vivek Prabhakar and Shubhra Chadda Headquarters: Bengaluru
It is a design-based retail startup established in the year 2010. The founders are Vivek Prabhakar and Shubhra Chadda. The main center of operations is in Bengaluru. The products are influenced by the world’s different forms of art and culture.
It also has various offline retail stores. It provides an enormous variety of products. These include home décor, gifting and lifestyle, apparel, and more. The retail startup is super popular for its fun and colorful products.
FirstCry
Founded: 2010 Founder: Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari Headquarters: Pune
It is an online retailer that offers more than two lakhs of baby care and kids products. It came into existence in the year 2010. Founders are Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari. The main office is in Pune. Firstcry offers products through both online and offline stores.
The customers get to have its products easily and at reasonable rates. It offers many different products. These include children’s apparel, footwear, toys, gifts, accessories, and many more.
Founded: 2011 Founder: Ashish Shah and Ambareesh Murty Headquarters: Mumbai
It is a retail startup that deals in furniture and home merchandise. Ashish Shah and Ambareesh Murty established it in the year 2011. The headquarters is in Mumbai. It provides products from its own brand as well as from others.
Founded: 2016 Founder: Ajai Thandi, Arman Sood, and Ashwajeet Singh Headquarters: New Delhi
It is an internet retail startup established in the year 2016. It deals in coffee products. The founders of it are Ajai Thandi, Arman Sood, and Ashwajeet Singh. The main office is in New Delhi.
Its coffee products are super famous and relished by many as these are made from arabica beans. It sells its products online and also has many outlets in different cities in India.
Licious
Founded: 2015 Founder: Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura Headquarters: Bengaluru
The specialty retail startup offers top-quality meat products. It came into existence in the year 2015. The founders are Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura. The headquarters is in Bengaluru.
It is an Indian retail tech startup established in the year 2016. Khushnud Khan and Rishi Raj Rathore are the founders of Arzooo. The operational center is in Bengaluru. The startup is a provider of a great collection of electronic products.
The platform supports opposite auctions where instead of buyers, the sellers tend to propose the price for which they are ready to sell. This helps people to have a fair price for their selected products.
Faasos
Founded: 2011 Founder: Jaydeep Burman and Kallol Banerjee Headquarters: Pune
It is a retail food-providing startup started in the year 2011. Founders are Jaydeep Burman and Kallol Banerjee. The headquarters is in Pune. Faasos offers a cloud-kitchen and dark kitchen model that provides food.
It runs more than 160 kitchens to provide meals to consumers. Whether you want biryani or your favorite dessert, the startup enables you to get it in no time.
It is a retail and food-tech venture founded in the year 2019. The founders are Vaibhav Singhal, Nikhil Monga, and Swati Agarwal. The headquarters is in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It enables people to straight-up place orders from the partner stores through the app.
As the name suggests, it eases up the shopping experience for users without waiting in the checkout queues.
MeatRoot
Founded: 2014 Founder: Mohit Bhonde, Vrushali Babar, and Shrikant Babar Headquarters: Pune
It is a retail startup for meat products founded in the year 2014. The founders are Mohit Bhonde, Vrushali Babar, and Shrikant Babar. The headquarters is in Pune. The startup is an online store for fresh, frozen, and processed meat.
It offers products like seafood, chicken wings, exotic meat, pork, duck, goat meat, boneless chicken, and more.
DealShare
Founded: 2018 Founder: Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, and Sankar Bora Headquarters: Jaipur
It is an online purchasing startup founded in the year 2018. Its main office is in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, and Sankar Bora are the founders. Its platform provides a great variety of products to the customers.
It allows people to purchase products easily and at cheaper rates. The products offered include fruits, vegetables, accessories, furnishings, etc.
Healthkart
Founded: 2011 Founder: Sameer Maheshwari and Prashant Tandon Headquarters: Gurugram
It allows customers to get everything related to fitness at one stop. It offers protein, vitamin supplements, products for weight loss, personal trainers, and more.
Zeno Health
Founded: 2017 Founder: Siddharth Gadia and Girish Agarwal Headquarters: Mumbai
Zeno Health (earlier Generico) is a pharmacy retail startup established in the year 2017. The founders are Siddharth Gadia and Girish Agarwal. The headquarters are in Mumbai. It operates a chain of retail pharmacy stores to offer generic medicines at a reasonable price.
It offers great-quality medicines and also has a team of drugstore advisors at its stores. The main aim of this retail startup is to make healthcare more reachable and economical.
Conclusion
The startups are growing strong in India. One of the most important industries that have been seeing a great rise in terms of startups is the retail industry. In modern times, Indian customers are becoming more and more comfortable with online shopping. This helps them to have more variety and also cuts the role of middlemen.
Over the years, many retail startups like Myntra, Nykaa, Pepperfry, and the other above-mentioned have made great progress. These startups are transforming the traditional ways of retail business. These are sure to grow further and also inspire new startups in the field.
FAQs
Which are the top retail startups in India?
Top Retail startups in India are:
Nykaa
Myntra
Flipkart
Paytm Mall
Blinkit
Lenskart
Sugar Cosmetics
Bombay Shaving Company
Chumbak
FirstCry
Which is the largest retailer in India?
Reliance Retail is the largest retailer in India.
Which is the world’s largest retailer?
Amazon and Walmart are the world’s largest retailer.
Indian based startup unicorns like Flipkart, Zomato, Swiggy and Paytm have recently been under the radar of Twitterati accused them of getting investments from Chinese investors. This anger has abruptly taken a rise after the deceitful act done by China at the Galwan Valley after 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
People have shown their anger on Twitter and have also suggested to start boycotting the services of these applications which are either china based or being funded by Chinese investors all over India. Many users have asked that these companies should get their stakes back as most of the stakes of these companies are in the hold of Chinese investors.
People on Twitter are asking people to boycott and it can be a harm to their current market situation. Although they have not come up with any formal response regarding this they posted a photo informing people that how they are trying to help sellers across India to work hard and how they will support them by providing their health insurance plans, by laying off the storage fees and trying to provide flexible work policies making them feel more comfortable and helping these sellers to ease their work.
China has created a large effect in the Indian market by investing frequently in the past 5 to 6 years. Many of the Indian homegrown startups have been backed up by Chinese investors. China has been a key investor in the technological development of the Indian market. With the recent situation where people are boycotting Chinese goods and the Government is banning Chinese Apps, things are turning worse.
“The overall sentiment is anti-China and that is building on various counts which have now been aggregated. A lot will depend on whether or not the government wants to play the hardball.The social media storm was inevitable. In the past also we have seen how some apps were downgraded citing ‘national interest’. There could also be some direct business impact for the time being. However, how it will reflect in the long term will totally depend on the way the government plans to handle the current situation.” – Anonymous Industry Executive
Snapdeal Statement
While companies like Flipkart, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy and Oyo have not given any formal statement or uttered any word regarding this but Snapdeal came forward to give a statement.
“Snapdeal has always been focused on creating opportunities and access for India’s small and medium businesses – sellers and manufacturers. For over a decade, we have championed the cause of Indian MSMEs and provided them with a platform to grow and succeed. As a proudly Indian company, we remain committed and steadfast in this mission.” – Snapdeal
China’s Investment and Future Prediction
A source named Gateway House has estimated around $4 billion of investments have been done by them in India’s technology-based Startups in 2019 while a $2 billion investment was done in the year 2018. Moreover, at least 18 of the top 30 startups in India are being backed by Chinese investors.
Ant Financial, Tencent, Shunwei Capital, and Alibaba are some of the big Chinese investors who have their stakes in Indian based unicorns. Well, a startup founder has also stated that after the month of April the Chinese investments have started to come down due to which the doors have been opened for other avenues which are based in UK, USA, Middle East and India.
“Fresh investments will take time because everyone is cautious as to what will happen next. There is going to be a bit of a lull because the sentiment is certainly low. Both Wuhan and border tensions have come at the same time. There is an element of negativity. However, it will not have a major impact on the existing companies operating in India that have Chinese investors on board. The very fact that Chinese companies have invested in Indian firms, doesn’t make them ‘Chinese products’. There are so many Indian companies that have set up manufacturing units in China. If we keep on boycotting things like this, we will end up hurting our own economy and the talent growth” – Sreedhar Prasad, Independent E-commerce Analyst
Conclusion
Although it will be a hard road for India on the economic front for a while as there is a ban on the investments by the world’s second-largest economy it will help in getting invested by other countries too which are more reliable and will help create a good relationship with them. Also, it will be helping all the Indian based startups and entrepreneurs and provide them with a great opportunity in the near future.
With the current tensions at the border, it looks impossible for a while to expect good relations with China and the spread of the deadly coronavirus will also play an important role in the Chinese market as many countries would give a second thought to having economic relations with them.
The USA is the world’s largest economy, and is showing some disinterest in China for the past two to three months too can look forward to India and can become a prime investor in these firms.
FAQs
How many Chinese apps are banned in India?
224 Chinese are banned in India since 2020
Is PUBG banned in India?
PUBG is banned in India under the instruction of the Government of India.
Why Chinese apps are banned in India?
Chinese apps are banned in India because of the security and thereat of Indian citizens and the ongoing conflict between the two countries.
Gig employment has revolutionized the Indian economy in recent years, providing a large number of jobs for the population and adding to the country’s GDP in the long run. It is getting so popular that people are actively choosing gig work over regular work due to the convenience and flexibility of the job. Companies that recruit gig workers save money on office space, equipment, and other expenses, while workers enjoy flexible work schedules and the opportunity to do something they like and also earn more by doing multiple gigs.
Gig jobs were already popular before the pandemic, but since the COVID outbreak, many individuals who lost their normal employment have turned to gigs, which are very easy to find and offer an excellent opportunity to make money. More businesses are turning to gig workers in place of full-time staff, and their operational methods are shifting as a result. This allows them to hire more talent but at a lower cost.
Companies that provide gig jobs are expanding in India, and they are assisting a large number of people who are looking for work. We’ll take a look at a few of these businesses in this article.
About Gig Economy and Benefits and Challenges of Gig Workers
Flipkart
Flipkart – Gig Economy Company
Most of the gig workers working at Flipkart are delivery service people. Founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the e-commerce giant connects sellers to the consumers and delivers the products to the customers. Flipkart also provides training to its supply chain employees and provides them with all the gear necessary for the job.
Urban Company
Urban Company – Gig Economy Company
Urban Company is an on-demand home service platform that allows consumers to access a variety of services from the comfort of their own homes. Urban Company currently has 35,000+ skilled professionals providing 7,50,000+ services each month, as well as having a worldwide presence in four countries.
Bigbasket
Bigbasket – Gig Economy Company
Founded in 2011, Bigbasket is an online grocery delivery service that brings goods to your home once you place an order. The company employs roughly 35,000 people across 30 Indian cities, a large percentage of which are delivery drivers.
Swiggy is an online food delivery service that brings food right to your door. Founded in 2014, Bangalore-based company that operates in 500+ cities. Swiggy is also known as one of the fastest-growing unicorn companies in India. This delivery business, which employs over 1,30,000 people, makes around 1 million deliveries every day.
Zomato
Zomato – Gig Economy Company
Zomato was launched in 2008 as Foodiebay, and in 2010 it was renamed Zomato Media Pvt Ltd. Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah were the founders of the Zomato. The business joined India’s Unicorn club in 2018. It is available in a variety of countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Amazon
Amazon – Gig Economy Company
Amazon first entered the Indian market in 2013, and it has since grown to become one of the country’s largest online retail platforms. Amazon has created Flex, which provides part-time delivery work and other Amazon gig jobs in India for workers who want to make extra money. Those who have their own vehicles are eligible to apply for the delivery job, and can earn around Rs.140 per hour.
Dunzo
Dunzo – Gig Economy Company
Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suli, and Mukund Jha established Dunzo in 2014. It’s an online service that delivers necessities and groceries to customers’ homes. The company is headquartered in Bangalore. Jaipur, Gurgaon, Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Hyderabad are among the eight major cities in India where Dunzo is now active.
PharmEasy
PharmEasy – Gig Economy Company
PharmEasy is an online drug and healthcare supplies delivery service based in Mumbai. The application also provides online doctor consultations and telehealth. PharmEasy app works by taking the customer’s prescription, verifying it at the store, and then delivering the medications as needed. During the pandemic, the company also launched the gift a mask campaign, in which customers were encouraged to donate a mask to frontline employees, with the company matching each donation.
Ola Cabs
Ola – Gig Economy Company
Ola cabs, often known as Ola, is an online taxi and rideshare service that offers consumers rides that can be simply booked online. The company, which is based in Bangalore, provides services in practically all of the country’s main cities. Despite its many issues, Ola continues to have a large user base in the country.
Porter
Porter – Gig Economy Company
The company was founded in 2014 and is active in over 13 cities and has served over 50 lakh customers. The Porter provides transportation aids to the customers, which also helps the owner-drivers with employment and provides them with a consistent source of income. For now, the company has around 2 lakh owner-drivers.
Uber
Uber – Gig Economy Company
Uber began operations in India in 2013, and it has since served over 95 million riders and drivers. It is an online taxi and rideshare company that accepts online reservations for rides. Uber India has supplied gig jobs to a large number of drivers, however the Uber structure in India is very different from that in other developed countries.
Mr. Right is a home service business that offers a variety of services such as appliance repair, deep cleaning, and more. The company accepts orders online and will send a professional with a good track record to the customer’s home to complete the work. The organization employs over 60,000 freelancers and offers a variety of home services.
Blinkit
Blinkit – Gig Economy Company
Blinkit, formerly Grofers, is an online platform for ordering groceries and other necessities. Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar founded the company in 2013. The company began operations in Delhi and has since expanded to other cities. The company’s goal is to alleviate the problems and inconveniences that customers and merchants face as a result of the market’s disorganized setup.
Conclusion
Gig jobs are slowly but steadily gaining popularity in India. Because of the pandemic, there has been an increase in gig workers, and some individuals are enjoying it and do not want to return to their former jobs. Gig jobs offer convenience and flexibility. Gig workers make up a major portion of the country’s workforce and contribute significantly to its GDP. It is something that the authorities must address, and actions to protect gig workers and provide them with fair working conditions must still be taken.
FAQs
What is gig work?
Gig workers work as short-term, temporary, or independent contractors for one or more companies, rather than a regular, in-office, full-time position with a single corporation.
How much do gig workers earn in India?
The average salary for gig workers in India is around Rs 12,000 to Rs 16,000.
What is the most popular gig job?
Delivery driver is the most popular gig job.
What is called Gig economy?
Gig economy is a workforce environment for short-term employment, contractual jobs, and independent contractors who do not get monthly wage, isntead they get paid for completing a Gig.
As if phraseologies like ‘drug mafia’ or ‘movie mafia’ weren’t exciting the hipsters enough that even a legally run business had to be suffixed with this dreaded jargon ‘mafia’! Flipkart, we know, is the ‘don’ of online shopping in India (only figuratively we mean, don’t you worry!). But do you want to know why and how did this term, mostly associated with crime, got associated with one of the most cherished Indian startups?
Interesting, isn’t it?
This term was invented around 2007, to denote a set of former PayPal employees, who teamed up after quitting their jobs to ideate, fund, and found some of the leading tech companies of the world, such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, SpaceX, YouTube, Uber, Airbnb, Yelp, etc., all of which eventually made huge fortunes.
Money talks – as they say – and it sort of yelped in this case because in just a few years half a dozen of those tech-preneurs became billionaires.
Quite a story isn’t it?
A similar thing happened with Amazon, where two ex-employees of the American eCommerce giant, Sachin, and Binny Bansal, dropped the company to found a new Indian eCommerce firm, Flipkart. Little did they know that this new company would be ushering in the new era of online marketplaces for the country, much like the companies founded by ex-Paypal employees.
Destiny worked in similar ways even with Flipkart, whose ex-employees continued to form new businesses and startups. Therefore, when a bunch of former Flipkart-ians aka ‘Flipsters’ did the same, i.e., build bold tech startups by deploying their innovative ideas and investing their genius selves, they were called ‘Flipkart Mafia’.
Yeah! And among these “mafias” some of them turned millionaires soon after if you are wondering!
Why Flipkart?
Flipkart has been a popular cradle to the latest bunch of over 200 startups because it looks for ‘audacity’ in its employees – entrepreneurial spirit and appropriate skill set that is in the words of its ex-COO of Flipkart-
No wonder so many of its employees went on to become successful entrepreneurs, he adds. Apart from that, he also claims that Flipkart has a very open culture. One which weighs ideas above ranks. Also a deeply engineering technology driven outlook which searches for knack for problem solving as a major quality in its people. No doubt such an ambience bred quite a few notable founders & their inventive startups. Let’s take a look.
Not all dreams come true but the Flipkart mafia has more than a few great ones.
It is not us who are proclaiming it merely out of some ‘new India / startup India-themed optimism’, nor it is the published data from the Govt. of India, but the market, businesses, and direct customers and consumers, who have placed their faith in these tech startups founded, funded or supported by Flipkart mafia (Flipsters) that says so. The list is long, so we picked some of the most talked-about companies.
Let’s look at the startups founded by Flipkart Mafia.
Founders: Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar, and Vaibhav Gupta
Udaan Logo
Udaan was founded by ex-employees of Flipkart employees, Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta, this startup perfectly fits its name ‘Udaan’. That is to say, Udaan gives wings to millions of entrepreneurs running India’s micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that are the blood and bone of the Indian economy.
It is one of the largest Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce platforms connecting retailers, traders, wholesalers, manufacturers, importers etc. with the power of the internet.
Udaan can be used by the businesses to:
Buy and sell on their own terms while the payments, security and logistics are handled by the company.
Grow and discover by accessing new regions and markets.
Connect in their own language with prospective buyers/sellers via a personalized real-time chat facility. Thus, it makes doing business easy, convenient and also efficient.
Udaan hailed as a unicorn, has raised around $1.2 billion in just 5 years over the 6 rounds of funding that it received from 13 investors in total.
Navi Technologies
Founders: Sachin Bansal, Ankit Agarwal
Navi Technologies Logo
Navi Technologies is an emerging unicorn, which taps into the immense potential of the BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance) sector, having created a lending app that offers paperless personal/home loans to consumers with just a few clicks.
Navi Technologies is founded by Flipkart founder, Sachin Bansal, conceptualized by him right after Walmart bought Flipkart in Dec 2018. Having raised $500+ million in 5 rounds of funding by 14 investors in just 2 years. It sure has vital investor confidence.
PhonePe
Founders: Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer
PhonePe Logo
How can we not talk about this mobile payment app, which revolutionized digital payments for Indians?
PhonePe took on Paytm, which simply wasn’t easy when ‘Paytm Karo jingle became synonymous with digital literacy.
It was acquired by Flipkart within a year of existence. This says a lot about its acceptance as a one-stop solution for all kinds of transactions by all kinds of users i.e., individual as well as business users. And it sure is gaining popularity, revealing its growth figures, 25 Crore users leading with 40% share of all UPI transactions. It has raised over $1 billion investment so far, one but all from its parent Flipkart.
Having the privilege to witness India’s growth story so closely Burzin Engineer, Rahul Chari, Sameer Nigam have certainly made something to be extremely proud of!
Groww
Founders: Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal and Neeraj Singh
Groww Logo
Investing is a futuristic goal, likewise, a startup in this sector in India is futuristic too. Out of a billion people, less than 1% invest in the share market. Sensing the need of you and me to invest in return rich stocks, mutual funds, gold, and more from the safety and convenience of our homes, this online venture was started by Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal, Lalit Keshre, and Neeraj Singh.
It has amassed 10+ million users already, and those who vouch for the platform claim that it makes investing simple and fun. What more can one ask for when it comes to managing our savings and finances!
The Flipkart Mafia – Flipsters
Vogo
Founders: Sanchit Mittal, Anand Ayyadurai
Vogo Logo
Rent, ride and return are what Vogo says. Whether you are new to the city, or you don’t want the headache of owning an automobile, or even you are on a short vacation wanting to explore the city without getting stuck in mindless traffic – worry not because Vego will rent you a bike from the word go. All you need to know is how to ride a two-wheeler.
It has seen over $180 million in funding from 21 investors. This dockless rental service is the brainchild of Anand Ayyadurai, Balakrishnan Padmanabhan and Sanchit Mittal. Technology has clearly inspired some great ideas to kick start.
Cure.fit
Founders: Mukesh Bansal, Ankit Nagori
Cure.fit Logo
Fitness is something that fires the imagination of youth as much as money, fame and love because one naturally flows from the other. A fit body houses a fit mind, is an adage as old and as true as science itself. Yet, the importance of good health can never be overstressed.
Cure.fit takes this into consideration and has designed multiple fitness programs for each type of customer – the dance lover, Yoga enthusiast, meditative type or the diet freak. Online classes as well as physical fitness centres. They have it all.
No wonder it picked up like rage among millennials who have no time or opportunity for health tips from multiple sources but need one wise website to do that for them. Quite a generation shift eh?
Ankit Nagori, Mukesh Bansal are responsible for pushing this shift further. Going by the number of investors showing interest in this venture (32) and the number of acquisitions it has already made (8), this company looks pretty healthy and why not!
Suki
Founders: Punit Soni
Suki Logo
Suki isn’t a Chinese app or a China-based company. Our very own ex-Flipkart members Punit Soni, Anshu Sharma and Karthik Rajan visualized this next-gen AI-powered, voice-enabled digital assistant for doctors. It is headquartered in California, US.
Suki aims to assist healthcare workers in their routine tasks, such as dictating notes, retrieving information, and other mundane admin tasks. Now, doctors could focus on managing diseases, not files.
Founders: Shivakumar Ganesan, Ishwar Sridharan, and Siddharth Ramesh
Exotel Logo
Exotel was founded in 2011, by Shivakumar Ganesan, Ishwar Sridharan, and Siddharth Ramesh. Exotel is a cloud telephony platform that empowers small and medium-scale companies to carry on with their usual work seamlessly.
The company was formed by Shivakumar Ganesan, as an offshoot of his previous company, Roopit. While working on Roopit, Shivakumar discovered that he would be needing an automated call center solution to streamline their work processes. This eventually emerged as a standalone company that goes by the name Exotel.
Among the founders of Exotel, Shivakumar Ganesan was initially with Flipkart, where he worked as the Vice President – Products and Technology.
Arzooo
Founders: Khushnud Khan, Rishi Raj Rathore
Arzooo Logo
Arzooo is a retail tech platform that works on a B2B business model. It was founded by Khushnud Khan, Rishi Raj Rathore in October 2018.
Arzooo is known as the fastest-growing tech retail company that is empowering the physical retail business to embrace digital ways. The brand boasts of being connected with 100+, powering 5000+ stores with its business operating in 10+ cities to date.
Both the founders of the platform were ex-employees of the retail giant, Flipkart, making Arzooo a classic example of a company formed by Flipkart mafias. Khushnud Khan, was an Associate Director, Retail and worked for 3 years in the firm whereas Rathore worked in the Product Management department and served Flipkart for 2 years.
Hansel.io was founded in 2016 by Mudit Krishna Mathur, Parminder Singh, and Varun Ramamurthy Dinakar. Hansel is built as a B2B enterprise software that resolves the runtime issues of the mobile apps, thereby removing the need to update them frequently.
Hansel derives its name from the famous folklore “Hansel and Gretel.” According to Varun, one of the co-founders of the company, they have named it Hansel because it is quite similar to the story of the novel where two children were left to die in the woods but Hansel founds their way back, bringing him and Gretel to safety He says that Hansel, their company, is to bring the mobile apps, Gretels, safely back home.
All of the co-founders trace their way back to Flipkart, where they work at some point in their lives. Varun worked in the Digital and Mobile department of Flipkart, Parminder Singh worked in the iOS team and Mudit was a developer of the Mobile team in the company.
Hansel was acquired by Netcore Cloud on November 24, 2020.
Parrhai is an ed-tech startup founded by Anshu Gupta, Prashant Anand, Akash Chandra. Here, Anshu Gupta, one of the co-founders of the company, was an ex-employee of Flipkart, where he went on to work for 2 years 10 months and resigned as a Product Manager of the company.
Parrhai is an ed-tech company with a difference. Where most other similar companies focus on offering classroom-like sessions, which includes pre-recorded classes, live classes, and other course-related modules, Parrhai aims to demystify key concepts and change their lesson plan dynamically to ease the learning process. Therefore, the platform plays the role of a model teacher leveraging the power of AI to do it!
Homefuly
Founders: Vinay Indresh and Arnab Saharoy
Homefuly Logo
Vinay Indresh and Arnab Saharoy were classmates at NIT Warangal and founded Homefuly in January 2016. Vinay was an ex-Flipkart employee whereas Arnab worked at Myntra from where they resigned and set up their own company. Homefuly was modelled on a marketplace model where the brand connects with the best vendors and the best designers to promise world-class outputs.
Now you might be thinking is that all?
The answer is no. There is over 200 startup business that is launched by the ex-employees of Flipkart, Flipkart mafia, and many more to come!
Here are some more companies by ex-Flipkart employees that are worth mentioning –
xto10x technologies: Yes, helping companies, basically startups, scale their operations from 1-10 is no simple business. Binny Bansal has co-founded this one knowing it fully well with personal experience
Playment: An AI startup for businesses to help machine learning engineers build datasets for training
Runnr: A B2B platform offering hyper-local logistics service, now acquired by Zomato.
GrabOnRent: Yeah! Just grab on rent any furniture, appliance etc. out of thousands to choose from in multiple categories. Currently operating in Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bangalore, and Hyderabad, you sure wish this company comes knocking on your door soon.
A story alone cannot make you think out of the box, but this article here, can make you dare to dream, it can further make you believe that the world does not come to an end if you start with serving in a particular company. Furthermore, it will also remove that little/large amount of doubts or the fears of failure that usually stop you from taking starting your own company.
Inspirations are always helpful, regardless of whether they come right at the beginning or in the midway of our journey, they always tend to gear us up making the outcome far more pleasing than if it was otherwise. When it comes to entrepreneurial ventures, motivations in the form of the stories of the ‘firsts’, who took the risky road and with their passion and dedication, made history out of it, are ever so rejuvenating.
The stories here, of the ‘Flipkart mafias’, who put to use their learning, management skills, and insights to start out with their unique ventures will certainly be added boost to the budding entrepreneurs and quite interesting a piece overall. Wish you all the best for your brainchild in its creation!
FAQs
Was Flipkart inspired by Amazon?
Flipkart, the e-commerce giant of India is founded by two ex-Amazonians Sachin and Binny Bansal. Amazon was the inspiration behind the inception of Flipkart, which initially began as a bookstore.
How many startups are there in India currently?
India has around 50k startups going by the latest govt stats. Out of these, nearly 10% are tech-based startups making India the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world.
Why do most startups fail?
Approximately only 10% of startups succeed while 90% fail in general. Why do they fail is a matter of in-depth research. Few arresting reasons would be fund crunch, lack of product/market research and an unviable business model.
Why was Flipkart sold?
Apart from Walmart’s $16B lucrative deal which they couldn’t turn down, why did the founders decide to sell it, is open to assumptions and theories?
How soon can a company reach unicorn status?
There’s no absolute number but on average Indian companies/startups are reaching this status much sooner than a decade or two earlier.
2021 has been a rollercoaster for all of us, but it has been a watershed moment for the Indian startup ecosystem. Since January 2021, 119 merger and acquisition agreements have been completed, compared to 86 for the entire year of 2020. In 2020, this amounted to $1.3 billion in Mergers and Acquisitions; by 2021, the sum had risen to $3.8 billion. These are simply the agreements that have been made public; the bulk of them have not been made public, and their worth might be far more significant. And, given that we’re a month away from the end of the year, there’s undoubtedly more to come. Here are some of the top startup acquisitions to know about.
Here are listed some of the biggest startup acquisitions of 2021.
Acquisitions by Unacademy
Top Startup Acquisition – Unacademy Acquisition
Unacademy is an EdTech firm located in Bengaluru with a network of over 18,000 educators. It provides Live Classes, both free and subscription-based, for various professional and educational admission examinations. Unacademy has been on a buying frenzy recently.
Kreatryx, a platform founded in 2014 that provides videos, test series, and a postal tracking tool for GATE, CIL, SSC and ESE examinations, was acquired through a cash and stock deal in March 2020. Kreatryx continues to be run by its founder, Ankit Goyal. Unacademy gained a competitive advantage in the GATE and ESE exam prep markets due to the acquisition.
CodeChef
CodeChef, a platform for computer programming, algorithms, and programming competitions, was founded in 2009, was acquired by Unacedemy in June 2020. The acquisition is expected to aid the Facebook-backed company’s development of a coding skills segment for students.
PrepLadder
Unacademy paid $50 million for the acquisition of PrepLadder, a platform founded in 2015 which prepares students for postgraduate medical entrance exams. Unacademy’s prominence in the medical entrance examination categories was bolstered as a result of this move.
Mastree
Mastree, founded in 2019, is a K12 learning platform, which mainly focuses on core curricular subjects. It was acquired by Unacedmy for $5 million in July 2020. This acquisition bolstered the company’s position in the K12 education market. After a year of ownership, unacedamy shut down Mastree in September 2021. It also launched ‘Graphy’ in the same line. Users may utilise photos, videos, quizzes, and audio to study books and unique material.
Coursavy
Unacademy acquired Coursavy in September 2020 to improve its position in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examinations category. Coursavy, founded in 2018, is a platform that offers live lectures, online courses and provides students with handwritten study notes. and comprehensive quizzes.
Scapic acquired by Flipkart
Top Startup Acquisition
Flipkart bought Augmented Reality (AR) company Scapic in November 2020, intending to make shopping on its platform more engaging. Flipkart did not reveal the financial terms of the acquisition. As part of the transaction, it absorbed the Scapic team.
It’s a part of Flipkart’s plan to offer more immersive camera experiences, virtual shops, and new ways for brands to advertise on the site.
EY is a leading provider of assurance, consultancy, strategy and transactions, and tax services worldwide. Spotmentor technologies, an end-to-end skilling platform that helps organisations discover skills necessary for the future of work, upskilling, and reskilling employees at scale, was acquired by EY India in November 2020 for an unknown price. It makes use of cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning to help organisations address crucial competence gaps.
Rekrut India acquired by upGrad
Top Startup Acquisition
UpGrad is a Mumbai-based online higher education ed-tech firm that offers data analytics, product management, entrepreneurship, and digital marketing courses. It was named the official education partner for the Startup India learning initiative by the Indian government in September 2016. Rekrut India is a firm that provides recruitment and staffing solutions to help businesses grow their human resources. Rekrut India was acquired by upgrad in December 2020 for an unknown sum. It is the first time that an ed-tech or recruiting business has completed a 100 per cent acquisition.
Rekrut India will continue to function independently following the acquisition.
Directly acquired by ClickIndia
Top Startup Acquisition
Clickindia is a classified website that makes it simple to find, buy, sell, trade, and communicate with others who share the same interests. Directly. Live is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that enables people and businesses to plan meetings by integrating its platform into their systems and allowing them to hold video conversations with one another. In March 2021, Clickindia bought directly. Live for an undisclosed sum in an all-cash acquisition.
Fleapo acquired by Stritmedia
Top Startup Acquisition
Stritmedia is a four-year-old Kolkata-based firm that specialises in advertising and news media houses and affiliate marketing.
In December 2020, it paid an unknown sum for Fleapo Pvt Ltd, resulting in the establishment of a new brand called Sinofled Pvt Ltd. Fleapo works in the software and application development industry. Apart from the acquisition, Strirmedia aims to invest about $100,000 in expansion plans, staff building, and the brand’s services department.
Cure.Fit bought Fitternity, a Bengaluru-based fitness aggregation platform, in February 2021. It’s also one of the country’s largest fitness facility aggregators. Cure. Fit is a health and fitness firm that provides digital and offline experiences in exercise, nutrition, and mental health.
Fitternity will continue to operate independently, allowing Cure.Fit to expand its Cult Pass offering. Cure.Fit has now acquired Fitternity for the sixth time. Cult was acquired in 2016, followed by Tribe and 1000 Yoga in 2017, Fitness First in 2018, and Onyx in 2021.
Samunnati Financial Intermediation & Services, based in Chennai, which provides financial solutions for the agricultural sector, announced on April 12th, 2021, that it had acquired farmer-centric Agri supply chain platform Kamatan Farm Tech, an agricultural-technology startup focusing on the farming logistics and supply chain segment. After agri-tech firms LivLush and Sabziwala, Kamatan was created.
Elevar Equity, an impact venture capital firm, financed both and combined their firms in March 2020.
According to a statement from Samunnati, the acquisition would enhance the company’s market connection outreach activities. Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), small merchants, and agro SMEs would interact with corporate customers through the new company.
DailyJoy acquired by Lenskart
Top Startup Acquisition
In April 2021, Lenskart, a Delhi-based eyeglasses firm that joined the unicorn club last year, bought DailyJoy, a food and necessities delivery business in Tier 1/2 cities like Lucknow and Hyderabad, to strengthen its technological stack and technical capacity.
The acquisition is only to bolster the Acquiree’s team strength and exploit its technological knowledge. To assist its expansion, Lenskart wants to make Hyderabad a centre for high-quality, consistent engineering.
GamingMonk acquired by The Mobile Premier League
Top Startup Acquisition
MPL is an esports and skill gaming platform based out of Bengaluru. In April 2021, it acquired GamingMonk, a Delhi-based esports broadcasting platform that conducts esports competitions on various platforms, including mobile, console, and PC. The competitors include FIFA, Counter-Strike, and Call of Duty, and they are all streamed. MPL has absorbed the whole GamingMonk crew.
FAQs
What is startup acquisition?
Startup acquisition is the process of buying a successful or evolving startup company that has gained grip in the market.
Indians are fixated on the startup culture. People are choosing entrepreneurship over mundane, 9-to-5 jobs. However, not everyone succeeds as an entrepreneur. A survey revealed that approximately 11% of the Indians are engaged in ‘early-stage entrepreneurial activities’. And only 5% of these early-stage entrepreneurs actually went on to establish their startup.
But keeping these statistics aside, some Indian startups have gone on to dominate their target segments. This post is dedicated to some of the most successful entrepreneurs from India whose ventures have revolutionized the daily life of millions, if not billions, across the globe. The path to name and fame wasn’t easy for them; it involved several trials and tribulations.
Ritesh Agarwal founded OYO rooms in 2015. He was the recipient of the TiE – Lumis Entrepreneurial Excellence Award (2014), became the first Asian to win ’20 under 20’ Thiel Fellowship (2013), was named one of the top 50 entrepreneurs by TATA First Dot Awards (2013) and became the world’s youngest CEO at the age of 17. Ritesh Agarwal, an Orissa boy coming from a business-oriented family, went to Kota to become an engineer.
But unlike other JEE aspirants, his passion caught hold of him and he did not take JEE preparation seriously. Instead, he wrote a book called ‘Indian Engineering Colleges: A Complete Encyclopedia of Top 100 Colleges’; the book became immensely popular on Flipkart.
He was just 16 when he was selected for the Asian Science Camp held at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). With a penchant for traveling and having lived in tons of hotels, Ritesh observed a common problem at the places he stayed – the exorbitant price of the hotel room was not proportional to the facilities provided. He felt that majority of the hotels in India couldn’t satisfy the basic needs of a traveler on a budget.
Thus, he started Oravel Stays,his first venture in 2012. He improvised his business model and re-launched Oravel as ‘OYO’ which is short for ‘ON YOUR OWN’. Ritesh Agarwal became one of the most revered Indian entrepreneurs through OYO. At the age of 26 he became a billionaire.
Net worth of Ritesh Agarwal as of now is $2 billion. He became the second youngest billionaire after Kylie Jenner in the world.
An epitome of courage and wisdom, Shradha Sharma was at the top of her career while working with famous news media houses such as Times of India and CNBC (Mumbai). During her stint with these organizations, she noticed that no one was willing to promote and air the stories of entrepreneurs—both successful and not-so-successful. She figured out that there are millions of stories storming around but no medium to share them with the masses. Shradha decided to create YourStory, an online portal that hosts entrepreneurial stories and other share-worthy content.
YourStory was started in 2008 and has allowed over 70,000 stories to come to the fore. Shradha Sharma leads a team of 100+ people who work together to offer content in 11 Indian languages. YourStory’s aim is to provide a voice to the roller coaster of emotions that an entrepreneur goes through. Shradha Sharma is the recipient of the L’Oreal Paris Femina Award and has been included in the list of Worlds’ Top 500 LinkedIn Influencers. She is one of the most followed female entrepreneurs in India. Her channel has earned more than 26 million individual views.She is one of the most followed female entrepreneurs in India.Her net worth is of $1.3 billion.
Bhavish Aggarwal, an IIT Bombay alumnus, co-founded the most popular cab aggregator in India – Ola Cabs – with Ankit Bhati. He is the recipient of the Billionth award in 2013, Best startup of the year by IAMAL, and was listed in Forbes30 under 30 list. Bhavish revolutionized the idea of cab-hailing in India by making use of smartphones. Ola Cabs was different from the other cab services at that time in the sense that it leveraged smartphones and GPS technology; thus, it became easy for people to book cabs from anywhere, at any time. Bhavish Aggarwal left a well-paying job at Microsoft to work on Ola Cabs. No one supported his idea but it was his strong will, determination, and eagerness to take risks in life that led him to the pinnacle of success. Bhavish Aggarwal is counted amongst the most successful Indian entrepreneurs. According to Time magazine Bhavish Aggarwal is one of the 100 Most Influential People this year. His Net worth is $ 500 million.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the founder of Paytm, the cornerstone of digitized payments in India. Vijay is from Aligarh, India. A graduate of the Delhi College of Engineering, Vijay worked on several projects and at a small startup before taking the entrepreneurial plunge. He put in USD 2 million to get One97 up and running. One97 is the parent company of Paytm. The payments platform gave Indians access to a mobile wallet, the facility of making payments using QR codes, simplified bill payments, and a lot more. These features made Paytm wildly popular. In this manner, Vijay Shekhar Sharma became an inspiration to budding entrepreneurs all over the globe. He Won the Best Serial Entrepreneur Award at the Rural and Urban Development Summit and Awards 2022 presented by the Minister of State for Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India.
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, founders of Zomato
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah revolutionized the food delivery segment in India through its first foodtech unicorn Zomato. The duo are IIT Delhi graduates. Zomato started out as ‘Foodiebay’ and was first launched in Delhi. It was later extended to Mumbai and Kolkata. Now, there is not a single place in India where Zomato doesn’t render its services. Zomato’s mobile app is its USP; the app has an excellent user interface that lets you order food from the restaurant/eatery of your choice and make hassle-free payments. In Jan 2020, Zomato acquired one of its competitors- Uber Eats in India for a valuation of $300 million. In July 2022, Zomato went public with its stock listing at a premium of 53% over its issue price and it commanded a market cap of Rs 43,000 cr as of Mar 2023. In 2018, Prakash Chaddah left Zomato to venture into different fields. Net worth of Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal is estimated to be Rs 2,000 cr as of Mar 2023.
Kunal Shah graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Wilson College, Mumbai, and briefly pursued an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies before dropping out. Shah’s first startup was a company named Paisaback, which provided cash-back promotions for organized retailers. Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon are the founders of one of India’s most innovative business models – Freecharge. CRED is Shah’s second venture after he sold Freecharge to Snapdeal in 2015 for $400 million. He is definitely one of the most famous entrepreneurs in India.
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, founders of Flipkart
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are the founders of Flipkart. The e-commerce segment in India underwent a drastic change courtesy of Flipkart. Sachin and Binny found discrepancies while searching for products on Amazon’s online store. The duo realized that the USP of their e-commerce initiative would be the timely delivery of products complemented by a simplistic user interface that leveraged the latest technology. Both the founders have now stepped down from their positions in Flipkart after it was acquired by Walmart in 2018. Flipkart is still giving a tough fight to all the e-commerce platforms out there and continues to win the hearts of Indians. India Today ranked them 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list.
Deep Kalra is the founder of MakeMyTrip. The credit for the introduction of online train bookings in India goes to Deep Kalra. A graduate of St. Stephen’s College with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad, Deep worked for GE Capital and ABN AMRO bank. But the office culture and 9-5 job couldn’t captivate him enough. With a $2 million investment from eVentures and his co-founders, Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip, (earlier known as ‘India Ahoy’) in the year 2000. The company was listed on NASDAQ in August 2010. After IRCTC joined the race, Deep diversified MakeMyTrip by introducing hotel bookings. MakeMyTrip has mergers with MyGola, TrulyMadly, and the ITC group, to name a few. Deep Kalra is the chairperson of the NASSCOM Internet Working Group, a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM, and is part of CII’s tourism sub-committee. He was ranked no 1 in a list of most powerful digital influencers in India by KPMG in 2011. His net worth is $ 136 million.
BYJU’S has helped thousands of students who struggle with subjects such as mathematics and science crack some of the hardest entrance exams like the JEE, NEET, and UPSC, CAT, IAS, and international examinations such as GRE and GMAT. BYJU’S has dominated the online education vertical for quite some time now. Byju Raveendran is the founder of BYJU’S. He is an engineer who worked in a shipping firm and accidentally stepped into the field of teaching when he assisted his friends with their CAT exam. Raveendran’s friends cleared the exam with flying colors and this motivated him to take up teaching on a full-time basis. Byju Raveendran started BYJU’s with an initial investment of just INR 2 lakhs. The startup’s valuation has recently crossed $22 billion as of March 2022, and the company have over 115 million registered students.In January 2022, the company joined Simplilearn, Unacademy, upGrad, PrepInsta Prime and Vedantu to become one of the founding members of IAMAI’s India EdTech Consortium.
In March 2022, the company signed a contract with Qatar Investment Authority to establish a new edtech company and a R&D center in Doha.
The concept of bringing the grocery store to one’s doorstep has done wonders across the globe. With it, the problem of waiting in long queues at groceries has now gone for a toss. Indians too now prefer the online route for grocery shopping. And who has dominated this segment? BigBasket. Hari Menon is the founder of BigBasket. With sales of over INR 150 crores per month, BigBasket has cemented its place as one of the big shots in the Indian e-commerce domain. It is operational in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata at present. In 2021 Tata Digital buys 64% stake in BigBasket His company received a lot of awards such as Consumer Internet Company of the Year by VC Circle Awards 2016, Best Online Grocer at Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards 2016, Best retail and e-commerce app of the year at AWS Mobility Awards 2017, etc.
Albinder Dhindsa wanted to provide the services of a grocery, bakery, and general store through a consolidated platform. His dream took the form of Grofers, an Indian online grocery service. Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar founded Grofers. The duo worked hard to infuse new ideas into the online delivery system in India. Grofers is worth around $650 million today. The company has shifted from a B2B to a B2C business model. Grofers was named one of the Top 10 startups in Delhi and Gurgaon in 2014. Grofers had attained unicorn status or $1 billion in valuation, after raising over $120 million from food aggregator Zomato Ltd. On December 13, 2021, Grofers changed its brand name to Blinkit. As of 2021 Albinder holds 5-10% stake in the company.
Sanjiv Bajaj is known as the Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv. Born into a family of the Bajajs, a business house started by Jamnalal Bajaj, who led the Bajaj Group to glory, Sanjiv had the zeal to raise their family business to amazing highs. Sanjiv is the son of Rahul Bajaj and great-grandson of Jamnalal Bajaj. After completing his Btech. in Mechanical engineering, followed by a Masters in manufacturing systems from the University of Warwick and an MBA from Harvard Business school, Sanjiv started his career with Bajaj Auto in 1994.
He had been a promising businessman from the very first, which helped him scale numerous prestigious designations within the organization. He had brought the American-style supply chain management to Bajaj Auto. Bajaj is currently serving as a non-executive director of Bajaj Auto.
Along with Bajaj Auto, Sanjiv also contributed to Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, Bajaj Finance for which he was appointed as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman. Sanjiv even led Bajaj Allianz General Insurance to emerge as the 2nd most profitable insurance company in India. Being an accomplished entrepreneur, Bajaj won a range of awards for the same, like the Entrepreneur of the Year” Award 2015-16 from Bombay Management Association, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2017, Economic Times Awards for Business Leader of the Year 2018. Therefore, Sanjiv Bajaj can be regarded as one of the greatest entrepreneurs and business leaders that India has seen to date. Sanjiv Bajaj has a revenue of over ₹ 36,692 crore ($ 4.4 billion) and profit of over ₹ 2,866 crore ($ 348 million) for H1 FY2022-23.
PolicyBazaar has certainly grown to become one of the best insurance aggregators and a global technology company but it might not have secured the illustrious position that it now stands on if it was not for the Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder of the company, Yashish Dahiya. Dahiya was a student of IIT Delhi, from where he did his Bachelors in Engineering. He then went on to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad, which was followed by an MBA from INSEAD in 2001.
Yashish was the MD of the pan-European travel distributor, ebookers.com, and had previous experience of working as a strategy consultant of Bain & Co. in their London office before he founded PolicyBazaar in 2008. Yashish Dahiya had a major contribution to PolicyBazaar since he founded the company along with Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar in 2008, which has successfully become a key influencer in consumer decisions around insurance now. Furthermore, the platform hosts over 100 million visitors a year on average on its platform.
Dahiya was honored with the EY Entrepreneur of The Year (EOY) 2019 award in the Financial Services category and more for all that he had done for PolicyBazaar. Yashish Dahiya is also an extraordinary sportsperson along with a celebrated entrepreneur. He is the Indian masters swimming champion and has taken part in several world masters swimming championships representing India. Furthermore, Dahiya also boasts of having the 3rd fastest half ironman timing and the 5th fastest Ironman timings amongst Indians across all age groups along with having the fastest timings in his age group. In June 2021, Policybazaar obtained the insurance broking license from IRADA and announced that it would set up 100 offline outlets across India. The company also surrendered its web aggregator license. PB Fintech Ltd, the parent company of Policybazaar, opened its initial public offering (IPO) and raised ₹5,625 crore(US$700 million).Shares of PB Fintech Ltd began trading on National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in November 2021.
It seems nothing less than a dream when we talk about a fan of Manchester United, Mumbai Indians, and the Indian cricket team, who founded a company named Dream11 for the love of sports that he nurtures. Yes, it happened with Harsh Jain, who with his founding partner, Bhavit Sheth, founded Dream11 and Dream Sports, India’s no. 1 sports fantasy platform for sporting enthusiasts. That allows users to play fantasy cricket, hockey, football, kabaddi, handball, basketball, volleyball, rugby,futsal, American football,and baseball.
Harsh was the son of Anand Jain, an Indian business magnate previously associated with Mukesh Ambani. He was born in Mumbai, India, and was an engineering student at the University of Pennsylvania, after which he went for an MBA from Columbia Business School. Harsh began his career with Microsoft from where he completed a 2 months Summer Internship from June 2006 to August of the same year after which he went to work in Jai Corp Limited as a Marketing Manager. His father, Anand Jain was then the Chairman of the company. Jain worked at Jai for 13 months, when in 2008 he decided to establish Dream11.
Harsh is currently serving as a Culture Enforcement Officer (CEO) & Co-Founder of Dream Sports (Dream11, FanCode, DreamX, and more) and one of the leading entrepreneurs of India. Harsh is a major inspiration for the budding entrepreneurs of the country for sure. In April 2019, Dream11 became the first Indian Fantasy sportcompany to become a unicorn.In November 2021 Dream11 was valued at $8 billion.In December 2022, Dream11 had 160 million active users in India.
Supam Maheshwari is better known as the CEO and Co-Founder of Firstcry, India’s online marketplace for baby products. Supam was a postgraduate student from IIM Ahmedabad and started Brainvisa, as his first company with Amitava Saha, back in March 2000. The Pune-based company witnessed a steady growth before it was acquired by the US-based group, Indecomm Global in 2007.
Supam served as the Co-founder and the CEO of Brainvisa till December 2009 in order to found another company. He founded FirstCry.com in August 2010 along with Amitava Saha, Prashant Jadhav, and Sanket Hattimattur.
The idea of establishing an eCommerce company focused on baby care products was rooted deep in his personal experience as a first-time parent, who faced numerous challenges in sourcing the best product for his baby. Firstcry has grown to be a market leader when it comes to baby products online. The company currently boasts of over 380 stores across India.
His net worth could be estimated at 190 million USD.The baby products marketplace’s valuation stands at 1.9 billion USD after an equity funding round of 13 million USD with pi Ventures As of 2021.
FirstCry had increased its IPO size from around $700 Mn to $1 Bn, aiming at a valuation of around $6-7 BnIN Aug 2022
Richa Kar is the face of one of India’s largest online lingerie stores, Zivame. Richa was born in a conventional family in Jamshedpur. Kar was an engineering student, who completed her graduation from BITS Pilani and eventually went for a corporate job in Bangalore. Richa eventually left her job in order to pursue an MBA, after which she joined Spencers Retail and then SAP Retail.
Her exposure in the retail industry helped her develop knowledge and practical skills beneficial for the retail industry. While working with SAP, Richa was intrigued about Victoria’s Secret, America’s largest retail company for women’s lingerie, and the success it enjoys. Soon after, she realized that India hasn’t got any such websites empowering women to shop for their own lingerie online smoothly and fearlessly.
Though Richa had a considerable experience of around 8 years by then in the retail industry, her parents didn’t get the concept of selling lingerie and weren’t sure how they would speak of her daughter, who is involved in such a profession to others. Therefore, she gravely lacked any support from her family but with her strong will and zeal to found a startup, she ultimately managed to establish Zivame with Kapil Karekar in 2011. Zivame has now become an online leader in its segment, offering more than 5,000 styles, 50 brands, and 100 sizes. Zivame products come at affordable prices with high quality.
The company that initially started with Rs 35 lakhs, which Richa borrowed from her friends, is currently one of the best women’s lingerie marketplace in India. Zivame has received $69 million in funding at a valuation of $98.6M and her net worth is Rs 749 crores, according to reports. The company currently holds about 26% of the market share of the women’s online lingerie market in India, which stood at Rs 430 crore in FY19.
Ashish Hemrajani is an Indian entrepreneur, popularly identified as the Co-founder and CEO of Bigtree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of India’s biggest online entertainment ticketing platform BookMyShow. Ashish Hemrajani completed his MBA with Marketing as his specialization from Sydenham University in 1997.
As soon as he completed his MBA, he went to work with J. Water Thompson. However, after working in the client management segment of the firm for 2 years, Ashish left the company in order to start his new venture with Bigtree Entertainment and BookMyShow in 1999.
BookMyShow still stands as a leading online ticketing solution for Indians. Under the leadership of Ashish, the company further expanded to New Zealand, UAE, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. BookMyShow also had a feature to buy tickets of sports matches like IPL, ISL, etc. They now have employ over 400 people across offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore. Ashish Hemrajani Net worth is estimated at Rs.3000 Crore as of 2021.
Shiv Nadar is a founding member of HCL Technologies and a prominent Indian entrepreneur, billionaire industrialist, and the recipient of India’s 3rd highest civilian award, Padma Bhushan. Shiv Nadar is the 3rd richest person of India, as of September 2021 with a net worth of around US$29.3 billion. Nadar goes by the nickname “Magus” (meaning: wizard in Old Persian), which he received from his friends.
Nadar was educated in the St. Joseph Boys Higher Secondary School, Trichy, and received his pre-university degree from the American College, Madurai. He again pursued Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, and received his Bachelor’s in engineering.
Walchand Group’s Cooper Engineering Ltd., Pune, which he joined in 1967, marked the start of Nadar’s career. However, he soon left his job role and founded Microcomp, a company that focused on selling teledigital calculators in the Indian market. Soon after that, he founded HCL in 1976 in collaboration with several friends and colleagues and with an investment of Rs 187,000.
The company made revolutionary advancements in the Indian IT landscape and is still regarded as one of the best among the homegrown IT companies whereas Shiv Nadar stands tall and towering as one of the top entrepreneurs of India.
The founder and CEO of the cyber security company, TAC Security, Trishneet Arora, was named in Forbes 30 Under 30 2018 Asia list and also in Under 40 List of India’s Brightest Business Minds 2019 by Fortune magazine, in 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year in Service Business-Security, 2021 Fortune India 40 Under 40 and 2022 he was Awarded as global leader of tomorrow.
Arora failed in the 8th standard but his relentless love for computers and coding drove him through the path of glory to become a professional ethical hacker and a renowned cybersecurity expert. Arora dropped out of school but continued with his studies along with fixing computers and cleaning up software.
Trishneet was only 19 when he founded his own company, TAC Security Solutions in 2013 and he has never looked back since then. The cybersecurity company, TAC Security offers protection to numerous corporations like Reliance Industries, CBI, Gujarat Police, and Punjab Police and others, against network vulnerabilities and data theft. Trishneet Arora’s net worth is $5 million as of now.
The founder of Reliance Industries, Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, or Dhirubhai Ambani, as he is popularly known, was a successful entrepreneur and business tycoon, who took Reliance public in 1977. Dhirubhai has been recognized with numerous awards and accolades heaped on during his lifetime and was also awarded the prestigious Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honor after he died in the year 2002.
Dhirubhai was a student of the Bahadur Khanji school. After the completion of his studies, he left for the Port of Aden, Yemen, to work for A. Besse and Co., for which he was later involved in selling shell and Burmah oil products. However, he left Aden and came back to his motherland to start his own company. Initially starting with “Majin” in partnership with Champaklal Damani, Dhirubhai eventually set up Reliance Commercial Corporation in 1966, which was later rechristened as Reliance Industries in May 1973.
Also, it was Dhirubhai who launched the popular textile brand ‘Vimal’. Dhirubhai died when he was 69 and was worth around $2.9 bn upon his death.
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is the Executive Chairman and CEO of the largest steel-making company in the world, ArcelorMittal, and an Indian steel magnate based in the United Kingdom. Besides, Mittal also serves as the Chairman of Aperam, a stainless steel manufacturer, which spun out of ArcelorMittal. Mittal owns around 38% stakes in his company along with another 20% stakes in the EFL Championship football club, Queens Park Rangers.
Lakshmi Mittal has also been appointed as a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs since 2008. Mittal was recognized with titles, honors, and awards of various kinds from time to time including “the third-richest person in the world” as announced by Forbes in 2005. He was also announced as the “Business Person of 2006” by Sunday Times, “Person of the Year” by Financial Times, In 2008 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, and more.
Born in a Marwadi family, Lakshmi studied at Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya in Calcutta and graduated from the University of Calcutta affiliated St Xavier’s College with a B.Com degree in the first class. Mittal first chose the business way by founding the steel factory PT Ispat Indo. He went to purchase numerous companies from abroad, like the Irish Steel plant, starting from the state-owned steelworks in Trinidad and Tobago, all of which were successful initiatives.
Mittal ultimately succeeded to come out triumphant in a hostile takeover bid of Arcelor and later renamed it to ArcelorMittal, which is currently responsible for bringing a lion’s share of revenues for Mittal. As of 2022, he was ranked as the 15th richest man in India by Forbes with a net-worth of US$17.8 billion.
Informally known as the Czar of the IT industry of India, Azim Premji is the face of Wipro. Premji is known as an entrepreneur, investor, engineer, business tycoon, and philanthropist who was responsible for cementing the position of Wipro as one of the most prestigious of the Indian multinational corporations through more than four decades of growth and diversification.
Azim Premji is the founding Chairman and a non-executive member of the board of the company and has been twice listed by Time Magazine among the 100 Most Influential people.
Premji went for a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University but he had to come back to take charge of Wipro, which was then termed as Western Indian Vegetable Products. He expanded the business to a large scale and later on discovered the vacuum that IBM left on its expulsion from India. He filled the gap by developing the IT wing of Wipro.
Premji is one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs whose total wealth was estimated $9.3billion and $25 billion respectively as of feb 2023. Moreover, he is also recognized for his philanthropic nature. He makes most of his donations to the Azim Premji Foundation and had agreed to give away half his wealth by signing the Giving Pledge in 2013. In 2019, he dropped from the 2nd position in the Forbes India Rich list to 17th position after giving away a huge amount to charity.
He topped the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List for 2020
We all have heard about Dunzo but do you know who founded it? The 24/7 delivery app was founded in July 2014 by Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suri, and Mukund Jha. Kabeer Biswas is the CEO and Co-founder of Dunzo, who completed his B.E from the University of Mumbai and followed it with an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).
He started his career with Bharti Airtel, Videocon Telecommunications, and then went on to found Dunzo. Dunzo currently provides its delivery services in eight Indian cities including Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
In August 2021, Dunzo launched a new service, Dunzo Daily, to deliver essentials and household items in 19 minutes. January 2022, Reliance Retail led a US$240 million funding round along with Dunzo’s existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital. Reliance Retail invested US$200 million for a 25.8% stake in Dunzo.
Ratan Tata is the former Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group and is still the head of the charitable trusts of the company. A scion of the Tata family, Ratan Tata was the son of Naval Tata and later adopted by Jamsetji Tata.
He is well-known as an Indian industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the few business tycoons who are synonymous with success. Tata was the recipient of two of the highest Indian civilian awards – Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.
Ratan Tata was a student of the Cornell University of Architecture and completed his Advanced Management Program from the Harvard Business school in 1975. Tata was the apparent successor of J.R.D Tata, who started with the shop floor of Tata Steel and was responsible for expanding the company on a massive scale.
Largely credited with the diversification and growth of Tata, Ratan Tata helped the company acquire numerous businesses and companies including Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover, and more, and scaled the company to unimaginable heights. Ratan Tata is currently featured among the top entrepreneurs of India and an inspirational figure for all the budding entrepreneurs and other individuals.
Nithin Kamath is the Co-founder of the biggest stock-broking company in India, Zerodha, an inspirational entrepreneur, and is famous as one of the self-made billionaires of India. Nithin along with his brother, Nikhil Kamat has also been declared as the richest self-made billionaire in India under 40, according to IIFL Wealth and Hurun India’s 40 & Under Self-Made Rich List 2020 with a combined wealth of Rs 24,000 crores, as assessed in 2020. In year end march 2022 zerodha net profit was 2094.3 crore.
The company has valued itself at $3billion, based on the valuations of employee stock option. Nithin Kamath was a student of Bangalore Institute of Technology but he was never quite inclined to academics. Kamath got into the world of trading at the early age of 17 and eventually, his love for trading grew.
Nithin was successful in trading but also lost quite a lot of his money in the early 2000s. Kamath then returned to a fixed job at a call center, where he worked for 4 years before joining Reliance Money as a franchisee in proprietary trading and advisory services. He worked hard and saved his capital to establish his own company Zerodha in 2010 and emerge at the top of his game with Nikhil.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is an Indian billionaire entrepreneur distinguished for being the executive chairperson and founder of Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologics Limited. Furthermore, she was also recognized as the former chairperson of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Kiran was the recipient of the Othmer Gold Medal for her contributions to the fields of science and chemistry.
Financial Times listed her among the Top 50 women in the business list while Forbes listed her as the 68th most powerful woman in the world. Furthermore, Kiran was also named the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020.
After completing her graduation from Bangalore University with a bachelor’s degree in Zoology, Kiran went to the fermentation science and brewing at Melbourne University and topped her class emerging as a master brewer in 1975. She struggled to join as a master brewer in India after serving Carlton and United Breweries because the breweries here believed that the job of a master brewer is a “man’s work.”
However, Kiran discovered huge opportunities abroad and joined Biocon Biochemicals Limited, and eventually started Biocon India. In 2015, she joined The Giving Pledge, promising that at least half of her wealth will be dedicated to philanthrop. In 2019, she was listed as the 68th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She received Firodia Lifetime Achievement Award 2022 for her contributions to science and technology.
In January 2020 Kiran received the international award and became the fourth Indian citizen to be honored with Australia’s highest civilian award. In year 2023 they start
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw scholarship for the students who study in the fields of science, technology or mathematics at the Mount Helen Campus. By 2022 she has a net worth of $3.1 billion.
Back in 2010, paying gas, electricity, telephone bills, and recharging our mobiles, DTH, and more wasn’t as easy as it is now. Then, Freecharge was one of the companies that came into being, which greatly helped the Indian masses to empower their digital ways. Sandeep Tandon was one of the founders of this precursor of today’s digital payments app, Freecharge, which he founded in 2010 with Kunal Shah.
A technology investor and one of the most successful entrepreneurs of India, Sandeep Tandon was a student of Bombay Scottish, after which he pursued a Bachelor’s and then Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. Sandeep started his career with a Los Angeles startup where he worked as an application manager.
However, it wasn’t long before he left the company and initiated his own venture, Celetronix but that was again sold to Jabil Circuits.
Freecharge was the next company that he founded, which emerged as the fastest-growing mobile payments app in India. After a short but successful period, Freecharge was acquired by Snapdeal and then eventually acquired by Axis bank, which currently owns the company.
Being a successful entrepreneur with years of experience, Sandeep Tandon is currently serving as the Managing Director of Tandon Group, as an Angel investor, and a mentor to the young entrepreneurs.
As eccentric as its name, Bewakoof boasts of an incredibly successful run as a casual wear and accessories hotspot for the current generation and undoubtedly a major part of its success goes to its Founder Director, Prabhkiran Singh. He along with Siddharth Munot founded Bewakoof.com back in 2010, which has since been a raging success for its unique printed t-shirts, joggers, funky mobile covers, and other accessories.
Both being civil engineering graduates from IIT Bombay, Prabhkiran and Siddharth were well-known to each other. In fact, both of them started with their independent startups right after they completed studies but none of them truly worked before Bewakoof was launched, which disrupted the Indian markets, promoting the “silliness” when it comes to fashion.
The estimated annual revenue of Bewakoof in 2020 was INR 200 Crores. The net worth of Bewakoof is estimated at INR 100 Crores.
The Indian traditional consumer products market was all saturated and boring, hoping for an upcoming disruption, which Mamaearth brought with its honest, organic, and safe products. The initial idea emerged out of a real-life problem that Varun and Ghazal Alagh faced while raising their own baby.
All of us want to extend our utmost care and best quality products to a newborn and Varun and Ghazal Algh wanted the same for their baby. However, it was when they were expecting their baby that they found the reality about the Indian baby products, none of which met the safety standards required to be applied on a baby. They first started to import baby products from the US but that was neither feasible nor less of a burden to their finances.
This made the research, apply for proper certifications and resulted in the launch of Mamaearth after 4 years of hard work and R&D. Mamaearth is currently hailed as the first Asian brand with the MadeSafe certification for its toxin-free and entirely herbal products. Furthermore, it boasts of having served over 1.5 million customers across 500+ cities of India. The parents turned entrepreneurs, Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh have achieved an envious success and are looking forward to a brighter way ahead as one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs.
The company has expanded into offline distribution through multi-brand retail outlets and exclusive stores, to both online and offline markets. Their next step is to expand the offline business to 100,000 outlets and 100 Indian cities. The company has estimated revenue of INR964 crore in FY22, a growth of 109% over the past year.
PhonePe is akin to digital payments in today’s India. This market leader of a UPI-based digital payments platform was founded by Sameer Nigam, along with his co-founders, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer in December 2015.
Sameer Nigam has an MBA in Entrepreneurship from The Wharton School. After completing his schooling at DPS Noida, Sameer went to study Computer Engineering at the University of Mumbai and then completed a Masters of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona, finally finishing his MBA in 2009.
Sameer served as the Director of Search Product Development at Shopzilla for a little over 6 years, after which he launched Mime360, an online social media distribution channel. Mime360 was eventually acquired by Flipkart, where he again served as a Senior Vice President, Engineering but he left the company after one and half years to start his own company, PhonePe.
PhonePe has since been a roaring success! PhonePe continues to be the top player in the Indian payments ecosystem and accounted for nearly 50 percent of all UPI transactions processed in December 2022, According to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
Conclusion
We hope this list of famous Indian entrepreneurs motivates you to act on that startup idea you have in your head. Who else do you think should be featured in this list? And what makes you go gaga over him or her?
Contact: shubham@startuptalky.com
FAQs
Who is the youngest entrepreneur in India?
Shravan Kumaran and Sanjay Kumaran are the youngest entrepreneurs in India. They co-founded the company called ‘GoDimensions’ a development unit, in 2011 at their home at the age of 10.
Who is the world’s richest person?
The world’s richest person is none other than the founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, who boasts of a net worth of $223 billion, as of February 28, 2022.
Who is the richest Indian?
Mukesh Ambani is the richest Indian with a wealth of $103 Billion, as of March 2022.
Is a CEO an owner?
The title of CEO is typically given to someone by the board of directors. Owner is a job title that is earned by sole proprietors and entrepreneurs, who have total ownership of the business. However, these job titles are not mutually exclusive — CEOs can be owners and owners can be CEOs.
Who are the leading Indian entrepreneurs now?
To name some of the most prominent Indian entrepreneurs, we must list:
Funding is the money that new enterprises require to operate and achieve their objectives. Funding can come from a variety of sources, but investors are the most common. When investors put money into a company, they want it to succeed and make a lot of profit so that they can get their money back.
There are different types of investors out there like angel investors, personal investors, peer to peer lenders, venture capitalists and so on. There are major corporations that invest in startups and subsequently profit from their profits. It is a win-win situation for both parties.
Accel is one such company that invests in new businesses. It is well-known for its investments in IT firms, software, and internet enterprises. In this article, we’ll talk about Accel-backed startups.
In 2004, Facebook was just a social networking site Mark Zuckerberg launched in his dorm room at Harvard. In its initial days it was just a website for college students to connect to each other and later got spread to other colleges and universities as well. It received funding from Accel in 2005 and it got what it needed and went public in 2012. It became great news as Facebook is now worth US$159.32 billion (2020) and Accel gained a lot of profit from their investment and set an example for the others. Accel and Jim Breyer which is an American Venture Capital company and a partner of Accel owns 11.4% i.e. US$11.4 Billion.
Launched in 2011, Supercell has since released a lot of successful games like Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Hay Day. These games have millions of active users and daily logins. When Supercell was a small, pre-launch game studio switching from Facebook games to focused on upcoming mobile platforms in 2011, Accel led its Series A investment. Softbank bought a majority stake in the company in 2013, which was then sold to Tencent in 2016.
Rovio
Rovio is a Finnish games-first entertainment company that designs, distributes, and licenses mobile games as well as works as a brand licensor in a variety of entertainment and consumer product categories. The Angry Birds brand, which began as a successful mobile game in 2009, is the company’s most well-known product. In October of 2017, Rovio went public on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Accel funded with Series A in 2011 and then in 2017.
Etsy
Etsy is a website where entrepreneurial craftsmen, artists, and collectors may sell vintage, handcrafted, or custom-made jewellery, apparel, home décor, art, toys, and other items. Etsy is funded by 19 investors and one of them is Accel. The initial investment was done in January 2008, with follow-on investments in 2010, 2012 and an IPO in 2015.
Flipkart
Flipkart was created in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal with the goal of introducing contemporary retail to India’s growing middle class. Initially focused on online bookstores, the company has expanded to include a wide range of products as well as its own nationwide logistics centres and delivery fleets, assuring a high-quality, end-to-end shopping experience for all customers. When Sachin and Binny were operating the company out of their apartment in 2009, Accel led the first-ever investment in Flipkart. Accel was a part of every succeeding fundraising round, and Flipkart was acquired (majority interest) by Walmart in 2018 after transforming India’s domestic consumer retail business in less than ten years.
Swiggy
Based in Bangalore, Swiggy is India’s most popular food delivery service. In addition to essentials, the company has created a general product delivery system, with a poppy orange, proprietary delivery fleet that sets it apart from other food delivery platforms. Accel first funded a Series A, B, C in 2015 and then a Series D in 2016 and Series E in 2017.
Urban Company
Urban Company, which was founded in 2014, has grown to become India’s largest at-home services marketplace. Users can connect with skilled and experienced service experts through the all-in-one platform. Accel first funded in 2015 and then in 2017.
BlackBuck
Founded in 2015, BlackBuck has become India’s largest trucking network by redefining the logistics of matching shippers with trucks in an organized and transparent way. The freight and services platforms deliver reliability, efficiency, and a seamless experience – whether it be matching a shipper with a truck, facilitating digital payments, or helping truckers manage their fleet effectively. The unique vertically integrated model is rapidly digitizing the entire online ecosystem of trucking in India. Accel gave it two investments in 2015, one in 2017, and one in 2019.
Freshworks
Since 2010, the company, then known as Freshdesk, has been at the forefront of democratising CRM software. Freshworks was renamed in 2017 to better reflect the company’s integrated array of SaaS products. The unique customer engagement software has become the trusted CRM for organisations of all sizes because it provides a ready-to-use, easy-to-setup and use solution. Accel was the first investor in the company, making the first investment in 2011, and has been a part of every subsequent financing round.
Money View
Money View offers no-collateral personal loans in a matter of hours. Money View’s loan application procedure is totally digital, from application to disbursement. The app allows you to maintain track of your loan’s progress, comprehend verification information, and receive notifications about forthcoming EMI payments. Accel invested in Money View in 2014.
Conclusion
Money is one of the most critical aspects of a new business. Without finances, a firm cannot start and acquire all of the other resources required to run and profit. Accel gives innovative enterprises with the capital they require to realise their objectives and turn a profit. It’s a terrific way for both sides to make money since as the business expands, so does the income.
FAQs
Who is the founder of Accel?
In 1983, Jim Swartz and Arthur Patterson co-founded Accel.
Who is the CEO of Accel?
Tara Abraham is the CEO of Accel.
How do you approach an Accel partner?
You should approach Accel with a brief overview of your project if you want them to invest in it. If your project is judged to be a good fit for Accel’s portfolio, you will be called for a more in-depth discussion.
What are the accel partners funded companies?
Accel partners has funded in many companies. Some of the companies tha are funded by Accel partners are:
Imagine finding a marketplace, where you can get almost anything and everything. Well, you don’t have to imagine anymore, because a place like that already exists in reality itself. From groceries to furniture, almost everything you need can be found under a single roof, thanks to the world’s biggest retail corporation, Walmart.
This American multinational corporation was founded in the year 1962 by Sam Walton and has been serving its customer since then. It also comes under the list of the top 5 largest corporations in the world by sales. Approximately 40% of products in Walmart are produced by contractors and manufacturers for the retail store itself, basically, it is private-labeled.
Walmart has been with its customer as a trusted partner since its beginning and currently has more than 11,000 stores in 27 countries that run under different names. The headquarters is situated in Bentonville, United States, this store sells over 75 million products and largest private company to employ over 2.2 million people.
This retail giant has captured almost all the largest marketplace and has subsidiaries, almost all over the world. This retail giant mostly concentrates on selling quality products at a reasonable price, thus giving cut-throat competition to its competitors.
“There is only one boss, The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
–Sam Walton
In this article, we will talk about all the popular subsidiaries that are owned by Walmart. So let’s dive into it.
The child of Walmart itself, Sam’s Club was founded in 1983 by Walmart’s founder, Sam Walton. This member’s only retail warehouse was started to give access to different products and services to those who want to make their small businesses successful.
This warehouse club offers its members good products at a reasonable value. The headquarters is in Bentonville, United States. Over 600 warehouse clubs over the United States and Puerto Rico, give the members an option to buy products in a huge quantity. The current CEO of the club is Kathryn McLay.
The club has been able to win customers by offering some features like free shipping to its plus members. The revenue of Sam’s Club is $64 billion in 2021.
Seiyu Group
Seiyu Group
This is a Japanese retails store group consists of supermarkets, department stores, and shopping centers. It was formed in the year 1963 by Seibu Department Stores. It is home to a great collection of fresh food, general merchandise, and clothes and offers them to its customers.
In the year 2002, Walmart bought about 37% of Seiyu. While in 2003, a deal was signed between Seiyu and Walmart that states it will teach global supply chain practices to the former. Walmart became the owner of Seiyu in 2008 after obtaining the majority stake of the company. With its headquarters situated in Tokyo, Japan, the company is headed by Lionel Desclee.
Founded in the year 2014 by Marc Lore, Mike Hanrahan, and Nate Faust, this is an E-commerce retail store, where one can get anything from groceries to beauty products. The headquarters was situated in New Jersey, United States.
In the month of August of 2016, Walmart acquired Jet.com with $3 billion in cash and $3 million in Walmart stocks. It is considered the biggest purchase of an e-commerce site in the history of this industry. Unfortunately, Walmart closed Jet.com in the year 2020.
Eloquii
This online plus-size clothing store designed trending clothes and accessories for plus-size people. Eloquii Design with its headquarters situated in New York, United States was founded in the year 2012 by Jodi Arnold, John Auerbach, Julie Carnevale, and Steve Zawada.
Walmart acquired Eloquii in the year 2018 by paying $100 million in cash. Currently, the CEO of this online clothing store that is the destination of fashion for plus-size people is Mariah Chase.
Flipkart
India’s one of the largest online retail stores was founded in the year 2007 by Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal. It is situated in Bangalore, India; it is undoubtedly currently one of the biggest online marketplaces that offers 30 million products to its customer in 70 plus categories.
Walmart in 2018 grabbed the opportunity and acquired Flipkart for $16 billion. From 100 orders per day to 10,000 orders per day, it has come a long way, Walmart decision to acquire it is surely one of the greatest deals. The CEO of Flipkart is Kalyan Krishnamurthy and its revenue as of 2020 is Rs 34,610 crore.
The biggest Mexican food and beverage store was founded in the year 1958 as Aurrera. In 2001, Walmart bought Bodega Aurrera, currently, its headquarters is situated in Mexico City, Mexico.
This subsidiary of Walmart is the leading grocery store and has over 2044 plus stores all over the region. As of now, the CEO of Bodega Aurrera is Raul Quintana.
Moosejaw
Moosejaw
This retail store mostly offers outdoor clothing like sweatshirts, hats, short shoes, and objects required for camping and traveling. Founded in the year 1992 by Robert Wolfe and David Jaffe, this online e-commerce site was acquired by Walmart in the year 2017 for $51 million. From snowboarding to rock climbing, to hiking, every item needed for this adventure can be found in Moosejaw.
With acquiring so many subsidiaries since its founding in 1962, it has become one of the biggest companies in the world and took the spot of Number 1 by revenue. Apart from offline retail stores, it is acquiring the biggest e-commerce stores of different countries to spread its business. Walmart is in the mood of world domination and at this point, it is not going to stop at any moment.
FAQ
Who owns Walmart?
Walmart is owned and controlled by the Walton family.
What is the revenue of Walmart?
The revenue of Walmart is 55,920 crores USD as of 2021.
