Flipkart

Founders: Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal
Key people: Ryan Stephen (Group CEO), Shantanu Genius (CEO)
Employees: 30,000 (2016)

Flipkart is an electronic commerce company headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was founded in October 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (no relation). Flipkart has launched its own product range under the name “DigiFlip” with products including tablets, USBs, and laptop bags. As of April 2017, the company was valued at $11.6 billion.

History

Flipkart was founded on 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. They worked for Amazon.com, and left to create their new company incorporated in October 2007 as Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd. The first product they sold was the book Leaving Microsoft To Change The World to a customer from Hyderabad.Flipkart now employs more than 33,000 people.

In October and November 2011, Flipkart acquired the websites Mime360.com and Chakpak.com. Later, in February 2012, the company revealed its new Flyte Digital Music Store. Flyte, a legal music download service in the vein of iTunes and Amazon.com, offered DRM-free MP3 downloads. But it was shut down on 17 June 2013 as paid song downloads did not get popular in India due to the advent of free music streaming sites.

After the success of its 2014 Big Billion Sale, Flipkart carried out a second Big Billion Sale. where it is reported that they saw a business turnover of $300 million in gross merchandise volume.

In 2015, Flipkart bought a minority stake in navigation and route optimization startup MapmyIndia to help improve its delivery using Map my India assets.

Awards and recognition

• In April 2016, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal were named to Time Magazine’s list of The 100 Most Influential People.
• In September 2015, the two founders entered Forbes India Rich List debuting at the 86th position with a net worth of $1.3 billion each.
• Sachin Bansal was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year 2012–2013 from Economic Times, a leading Indian Economic Daily.
• Flipkart.com was honored as the Young Turk of the Year at CNBC TV 18’s ‘India Business Leader Awards 2012’ (IBLA).