BENGALURU: Ever since his exit from Flipkart in 2018, Sachin Bansal, a leading entrepreneur, has his eyes set on investing in startups. Unlike his brother and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal who moved to Singapore after Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition of the ecommerce firm, Sachin has focused on investing in the Indian startup ecosystem, with a focus on finance and tech sectors. Despite slowdown gripping the economy, Sachin has made a series of investments in 2019, after he infused `888.5 crore into investment firm BAC Acquisitions, became its CEO and renamed it as Navi Technologies.
Navi Technologies recently invested `739 crore in microfinance company Chaitanya Rural Development Services (CRIDS), which offers small loans to small and medium businesses and education and transport sectors across Karnataka, Maharashtra and a few other states. Sachin acquired 95 per cent stake in CRIDS and became its CEO. Recently, Navi technologies also announced the acquisition of tech consulting firm Maven- Hive for an undisclosed amount, to strengthen its product development offerings.
MavenHive has earlier helped start-ups including Flipkart scale up their software technology. As part of the deal, MavenHive founders Bhavin Javia and Ananda Krishna, along with their team, have joined Sachin’s Nav i Technologies. “We are eager to start working with Sachin and with 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 opportunit y, we were excited to be part of the next leg of their journey,” Javia said.
Navi Technologies is also in the process of acquiring an asset management and mutual funds firm, sources revealed. Sachin had earlier commented that he is keen on investments in the finance sector, particularly across firms catering to those who don’t have access to regular banking features. According to him, technology can provide a major fillip to enterprises in the finance segment.
Some of the key investments made by Sachin after his exit from Flipkart include that in Ola, Ather Energy, Vogo, Bounce and lending startup Kissht, among others. Both Sachin and Binny quit Flipkart in 2018, following Walmart’s acquisition. The Bansals founded Flipkart in 2007 initially as an online book shopping platform, which they later developed into a full-fledged ec o m m e r c e company