Binny Bansal Unveils VC funding Firm For Start-ups

Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has plans to launch a venture capital (VC) fund with a target corpus of $ 400 million, which will focus on startups who need growth capital.

Bansal will be based out of Singapore. He will be a general partner running the fund and will also come in as one of the anchor investors. The fund will primarily be focused on startups in India, but will also look at backing entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia.

"Bansal is likely to invest 10-20% of the fund's corpus and will start bringing on board other investors soon. Bansal sold part of his stake in Flipkart - where US retail giant Walmart acquired 77% for $16 billion last year - for $200-250 million. But he still retains a stake of over 3%. The total value of his Flipkart holding at the time of the Walmart sale was pegged at about $1 billion.

Bansal has already roped Rajneesh Baweja Flipkart executive, to handle finance and legal functions at the fund. The move by Bansal to turn into a full-time investor will be one of the rare transitions by successful tech entrepreneurs in the country. Bansal has been making personal investments in startups for the last five years.

Some of early stage investments by Binny Bansal are into artificial intelligence-based medical technology startup SigTuple, breast cancer-screening startup Niramai Health Analytix, and Bengaluru-based dairy internet-of-things company Stellapps.

Binny's co-founder Sachin Bansal is using his $1-billion Flipkart fortune to start financial services company BACQ, besides making a few personal investments, like $100 million in ride-hailing major Ola.