Udaan, Cure.fit, PhonePe. Do you know what these companies have in common? They were started by former Flipkart executives, popularly known as ‘Flipsters’!
Flipkart started in 2005 by two friends, Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal (no they are not brothers) is India’s most famous and beloved startup. Interestingly, Flipkart was started by two ex-Amazon employees! Flipkart was the inspiration behind many young college students, firing their entrepreneurial zeal. Now, ex-Flipsters have turned Entrepreneurs and are ruling the Startup ecosystem.
There are over 200 startups founded by ex-employees of Flipkart! Additionally, there are over 40 startups which are backed by Flipsters who are on their board or have invested in them. Flipkart is a beacon of inspiration for an entire generation of entrepreneurs.
Let’s have a look at some of the startups founded by Ex-Flipsters:
1) Navi Technologies
Navi Technologies builds consumer-centric & technology driven businesses in the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services & Insurance) sector.
Founder: Sachin Bansal (Co-Founder at Flipkart)
Valuation: ~?1,636 Crore.
2) xto10x Technologies
They partner with starups to help them scale higher & function efficiently.
Founder: Binny Bansal (Co-Founder at Flipkart)
Valuation: NA
3) PhonePe
PhonePe is a digital payments & digital wallets company.
Founder: Sameer Nigam (Sr. VP at Flipkart)
Valuation: $7 Billion (Approx.)
4) Udaan
Udaan is B2B E-Commerce platform especially meant for MSMEs.
Founders: Sujeet Kumar (Head of Operations at Flipkart) & Amod Malviya (CTO, Flipkart)
Valuation: $7.5 Billion.
5) Cure.fit
Curefit is a wellness & fitness startup offering offline and online Fitness experiences.
Founders: Mukesh Bansal (Co-Founder at Myntra) & Ankit Nagori (CBO at Flipkart)
Valuation: $800 Million.
6) Suki
Suki is an AI-powered, voice-enabled digital assistant for doctors.
Founder: Punit Soni (Chief Product Officer at Flipkart)
Valuation: >$500 Million.
7) Runnr
Runnr is a B2B platform which provides logistics solutions.
Founder: Arpit Dave (Sr. Business Analyst at Flipkart)
Current Situation: Acquired by Zomato.
8) Exotel
Exotel is a cloud communication company helping mainly Startups & MSMEs.
Founder: Shivakumar Ganesan (VP at Flipkart)
Valuation: NA
9) Playment
Playment is a complete Data labeling platform which helps machine learning engineers build datasets for training.
Founders: Siddharth Mall & Ajinkya Malasane (Sr. Business Analysts)
Y Combinator Mentee.
10) Grabonrent
Grabonrent lets you rent online good quality furniture, appliances and many other accessories.
Founder: Manish S Sugandhi (Sr. Business Analyst at Flipkart)
Valuation: NA
These are just 10 of the 200 startups started by ex-Flipsters! Forget the PayPal Mafia, Flipkart Mafia is here to rule the ecosystem! They have raised over $1.3 Billion alone. According to a report by Inc42, 47% of the startups operate in the consumer internet space. So why do Flipsters have a higher tendency to start their own startups & succeed?
Nithin Seth, ex-COO of Flipkart said, “When we look into the profile of a candidate – we look for people who have a very high drive for action, execution, and high customer orientation. We look for a thing that we can call ‘audacity’ – they think they are very entrepreneurial and they are very good problem-solvers.”
Also, the company’s culture matters a lot. Flipkart is known to have a very open culture with every employee encouraged to present their ideas, thus instilling Entrepreneurial spirit.
‘If these two boys can start a Billion Dollar Company, why can’t I?’ says every college student dreaming to be an entrepreneur. It all starts with a dream.
5 years ago, nobody had thought an Indian Company would be acquired by a US Giant for a whopping $18 Billion, let alone having over 200 excellent companies started by ex-employees of a company!
Keep Dreaming, Keep soaring high!
By Dehit Bhardva
Literary Sources: Inc42, Entrackr, TechCrunch, Company Details from Official Websites.
Article Source: https://therepresentative.co.in/all-hail-the-flipkart-mafia-heading/
