BENGALURU: Ever since his exit from Flipkart in 2018, Sachin Bansal, one of the leading entrepreneurs of India has his eyes set on investing in start-ups.
Unlike Flipkart co-founder, Binny Bansal who moved to Singapore after Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition of Flipkart, Sachin has focussed on investing in the Indian start-up ecosystem, especially in finance and technology sectors.
Despite the slowdown that plagued the economy, Sachin had made a series of investments in 2019 after he infused Rs 888.5 crores in an investment firm, BAC acquisitions renamed as Navi Technologies and became its CEO.
Navi Technology recently invested Rs 739 crores in the micro-finance company, Chaitanya Rural Development Services, which offers small loans for SMBs, education, transport across Karnataka, Maharashtra and few other states. Sachin acquired 95 per cent stake in Chaitanya and became its CEO.
On Thursday, Navi Technologies also announced the acquisition of tech consulting start-up, MavenHive at an undisclosed amount to strengthen its product development offerings.
MavenHive has earlier helped many start-ups like Flipkart to scale up their software technology successfully. MavenHive founders, Bhavin Javia and Ananda Krishna with their team joined Sachin’s Navi Technologies as a part of the deal.
“We are very eager to start working with Sachin and Navi. We were awed by the kind of organisation that he built Flipkart into. So, when Yogi Kulkarni (former principal architect of Flipkart and VP of engineering at Navi) introduced us to this opportunity, we were excited to be part of the next leg of the journey,” Javia said.
Navi Technologies is also in the process of acquiring an asset management and mutual funds firm, sources said. Sachin had earlier commented that he is keen on investments in the finance sector particularly across those sections and population, which do not have access to regular banking features. He said that technology can provide a major flip to the enterprises in the finance segment. Some of the key investments made by Sachin after his exit from Flipkart include Ola, Ather Energy, Vogo, Bounce, Kissht (lending start-up) among others.Both Sachin and Binny quit Flipkart in 2018.
Sachin’s investments
His investments in firms include Ola, Ather Energy, Vogo, Bounce, Kissht (lending start-up) among others