Not just Flipkart: From Myntra to Snapdeal, Bansals rule Indian e-commerce

On Tuesday India’s largest e-tailer, Flipkart announced that it raised a fresh round of funding worth $1 billion as it tries to aggressively scale up after Amazon.com Inc’s rapid expansion in the country has heated up competition in India’s booming e-commerce sector.

Founded in 2007 by two former Amazon employees, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (Not related), Flipkart has remained an investor darling since its inception, having raised $760 million since its launch, not including the recently raised funds.

The Times of India has reported that Flipkart’s Bansals are now nearly as rich as Infosys co-founder NRN Murthy, thanks to their combined 15 percent stake which is valued at about Rs 6,000 crore after the recent round of fund raising. The ToI report states that the Bansals are also more valuable than outgoing Infosys CEO SD Shibulal, who together with his family holds Infosys shares worth Rs 4,300 crore.

Flipkart’s Bansals are part of the burgeoning Bansal community ruling India’s e-commerce sector, as noted in an earlier Economic Times report.

All of India’s biggest indigenous etailers - Flipkart, Myntra, Snapdeal and Lenskart - are headed by young men of the Bansal community and together control about 85 percent of India’s ecommerce space.

“It can be likened to the Jewish community in the US which continues to hold top posts in US banking and technology industry,” Ashish Jhalani, head of retail advisory firm eTailing India, has been quoted as saying in the report.

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Here is a breakdown of the Bansal domination of India’s e-tail space:

• Sachin Bansal (32) and Binny Bansal (31), Flipkart: This is the biggest Indian ecommerce player with the company crossing $1 billion in sales earlier this year. In the last year, Flipkart raised over $360 million in investor funding and is considered by many to be the frontrunner to take on US giants Amazon and eBay in India.

• Peyush Bansal (30), Lenskart: Servicing the eyewear needs of about 1,000 customers a day, Lenskart is aiming to open 100 stores across India in the next two years and is targeting a revenue of Rs 100 crore in FY15.

• Mukesh Bansal (38), Myntra: The fashion-focused website has gained spectacular traction in India since its launch in 2007. Earlier this year, Azim Premji’s Premji Invest led a consortium that pumped $50 million into the company, fuelling its expansion plans. The company hopes to hit the $1 billion sales mark by 2016.

• Rohit Bansal (31), Snapdeal: Along with his Wharton schoolmate Kunal Bahl, Bansal set up Snapdeal in 2010, one of India’s earliest marketplace websites. The company recently received Rs 830 crore in an infusion led by eBay and other investors.

Research firm Forrester expects India’s online retail spending to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 50 percent over the next five years and reach $16 billion by 2018, an eight-fold increase from 2013.