Indian startups can look forward to some peaceful time ahead and possibly keep the aggressive foreign investors from Japan and China in check. That is, if home-grown investors like Sachin Bansal join the funding scene and use the funds they have at their disposal to good effect. Sachin has about a $1 billion to spare from offloading his stake in Flipkart, which he co-founded. Walmart had acquired Bansal’s entire stake.
One startup trying to gain the support of Sachin Bansal is the electric scooter maker Ather Energy, based out of Bangalore, according to a Mint report. He and his co-founder at Flipkart, Binny Bansal have been one of the earliest to support Ather Energy and had provided the startup with seed capital as well. The other major investor is Tiger Global. Sachin Bansal may make an investment of as much as $100 million in Ather Energy.
Apart from Bansal, Hero MotoCorp is the other investor in Ather Energy. For Hero, it is more of a strategic investment since it may have future plans to make electric bikes and scooters to join the green initiative. Sachin Bansal is said to have even taken home an electric scooter made by Ather energy, which was launched in Bengaluru last month. The scooters are being assembled in their facility in Whitefield in Bangalore.
Coming back to the role Sachin Bansal is playing in startups, his is reportedly also in talks to invest in cab service Ola, led by Bhavish Agarwal, where SoftBank has been trying to use its muscle to influence decisions at the Boardroom level. Agarwal not only got a restriction imposed on SoftBank acquiring any further stake in the company, but got Bansal to commit funds to the tune of $100 million which will ensure Agarwal is assured of enough voting rights among the stakeholders to stonewall any adverse attempts by SoftBank.