Sachin Bansal is not done yet. The 33-year-old billionaire has an appetite for acquisitions: even as he closed the largest buy in the e-commerce space, the entrepreneur is scouting for more.
“We are continuously on the lookout for more deals, but they wouldn’t be as big as this. These kinds of deals do not happen too often and we are open to all kind of ticket sizes,” said Bansal, who is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of online marketplace Flipkart.com.
“The biggest criteria is the team, as in the case of Myntra,” he told
“But that’s not the only way we will grow,” he said, adding the organic way would also be pursued “relentlessly”.
Asked how long the deal has been in discussion, he said for some time, and that “we knew each other for about six years or so”.
The Bansals of the e-commerce world – Mukesh Bansal (co-founder of Myntra), Sachin and Binny Bansal (co-founders of Flipkart) and Rohit Bansal (co-founder and chief operating officer of Snapdeal) – are not related to each other.
Flipkart was as an Internet start-up in 2007, with the intention of making shopping easier. Sachin and Binny, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, had quit their jobs with the world’s largest online retailer Amazon.com to start Flipkart as an online price comparison site, with an initial capital of ₹4 lakh.
Bigger, better Then they stumbled upon something much bigger: the emerging opportunity of e-commerce itself. Now, with an estimated value at $2.5 billion, Flipkart sells everything from books to apparels and consumer durables.
“Sachin is a very focussed individual. I have a lot of respect for him. Over many coffees, beers and sandwiches, I have come to respect his guts. He has the appetite for risk… He is willing to take a risk with little certainty, when most other entrepreneurs will think a few times before they commit,” said Mukund Mohan, Director at Microsoft Ventures, an arm of Microsoft Corp.
Great expectations Mohan, who knows Sachin Bansal as a friend, added: “I fully expect them to acquire a grocery retail business in the next one-three years”.
Sachin Bansal, who had earlier acquired three e-commerce firms – LetsBuy (Consumer electronics player) in 2012, Chakpak.com (Bollywood news site) in 2011, and WeRead (social book discovery tool) in 2010 — is likely to make another splash soon.