Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal seems to have firmed up his plans to chart a new course into launching startups and making investments with the huge war chest he created by selling his stake in Flipkart to Walmart, where he raked in a whopping $1 billion.
According to an Economic Times report, Sachin Bansal has chosen two sectors, fintech and agritech. He is likely to float his own ventures in these two sectors and/or invest as a major stakeholder in startups in these sectors. And it has also been reported that Sachin Bansal has co-opted an old friend Ankit Agarwal as a partner in his new venture. This could be in the form of a holding company and Agarwal might be the CEO or COO. No official confirmation of these has come from either Bansal or Agarwal yet.
The first indications of Sachin’s new innings as an investor came when he committed to investing up to $150 million in Ola. Then there was news that he picked up a $30 million investment in Ather Energy, an electric bike making firm.
The two areas that have now interested Bansal have been the darling of many investors in India as well of late. There have been startups dedicated to lending to the much under-financed SME sector and that has been a great success. The individual loans are of a much smaller size and the overall record of repayments is also much better than the larger enterprises. And eventually, the SMEs find it very difficult to tap into funds from the mainstream lenders like banks and NBFCs. As much as the startups have found such areas attractive the VCs have also supported them with investments.
Observers see the involvement of technology in the agriculture sector as a huge game changer and Bansal wants to be part of this revolution.