Shadowfax IPO: Snapdeal founders Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl sit on 158X gains from early bet

Rohit Bansal (L) and Kunal Bahl (R)

Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, co-founders of e-commerce website Snapdeal and Titan Capital, are sitting on gains of over 158 times on an early investment they made in Shadowfax, the logistics startup that is expected to list on the stock exchanges over the coming days.

The two, in their individual capacity, invested around Rs 70 lakh in Shadowfax when it was founded in 2015 and got about 89 lakh shares in the company in return.

The value of that investment now stands at Rs 105 crore at the lower end of the price band (Rs 118 apiece) and at Rs 110 crore at the upper end of the price band (Rs 124 apiece), a rough calculation by Moneycontrol showed.

To be sure, these are their gains on paper and are not yet realised as two are not selling any shares as part of the offer-for-sale (OFS) component in Shadowfax’s IPO. The value of their investment may change depending on the share price at a future point in time.

Bahl and Bansal did not immediately reply to a request for comments.

While Shadowfax is a recent outperformer, the two have been known for backing consumer companies early on and generating outsized returns. They were early investors in Ola, Mamaearth (Honasa Consumer), Urban Company and more. While they invested Rs 75 lakh in Honasa and already generated returns worth Rs 75 crore, they made Rs 110 crore by investing Rs 57 lakh in recently-listed Urban Company.

All of these bets have individually generated over 100X returns for the two in about 10 years or less.