Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal eyes agri-tech, fintech sectors to set up new business

Sachin Bansal

After establishing and moving on from India's biggest e-commerce company, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal seems have set his sights on two emerging sectors in India -- agriculture technology and financial technology (fintech).

Bansal plans to set up a holding company through which he will establish new businesses and make fresh investments, two people in the know told The Economic Times.

Bansal will rope in Ankit Agarwal, his acquaintance from his time at IIT-Delhi, as a partner for this platform, the sources told the paper.

Agarwal has reportedly worked with Bank of America and Deutsche Bank in the past.

"They are evaluating multiple segments as well as investments in both these areas (agri-tech and fintech) to understand them better. These two focus areas are where Bansal is expected to deploy a large chunk of his capital. The time frame for when the company will be launched in not clear yet," one person was quoted as saying.

After Walmart took over control of Flipkart, Bansal sold his 5 percent stake for nearly $1 billion, of which he possibly retained nearly $750 million, after taxes.

The Flipkart founder was reportedly in talks with cab aggregator Ola to invest $100 million, which could go up to $150 million.

Another company which interested Bansal was bike maker Ather Energy, in which he is a board member and wanted to infuse $30 million.

Bansal was interested in investing $35-40 million in Sigtuple, an artificial intelligence-based venture, the sources cited earlier told the news daily.

Many investors have shown interest in India's agri-tech and fintech sectors, with the latter being one of the fastest growing sectors in the country.

Fintech is also benefitting heavily from the government's push for digitisation, especially in transactions.

Bansal's interest in agri-tech is surprising as there are many problems in that space in India, according to Jinesh Shah, co-founder of agriculture-focused venture fund Omnivore.

"It is a huge sector with a huge amount of problems. But there are quite a few areas in agriculture where startups are using software-as-a-service (SaaS), Internet of Things (IoT) solutions and remote sensing to improve logistics and productivity of the sector," Shah was quoted as saying.