How Flipkart became the top player of India.

In the year 2007, Flipkart took its baby-steps. Founded by Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal, both are alumni of IIT Delhi who were working for Amazon. They both shared a vision of running their own e-commerce platform, and so they did what most only think of. They left their jobs at Amazon and started their own company. Initially the aim was to only sell books, but as they explored facts they realized they could be in big.

Although it may look simple but making it large doesn’t come easy. From evolving the Book selling platform into India’s top e-commerce site they invested all their efforts. To ensure company’s credibility they faced two most important issues of every e-commerce platform. First is payment integration, which always placed a buyer in difficult spot as they always sheltered the idea of payment going to scrap and not having goods delivered, and offcourse then there was a lengthy process of online payment by e-banking. However, Flipkart pulled through, they introduce easy and reassuring methods of payments for consumers, like Cash on Delivery (COD) & Payment by Card. Second issue was setting up a supply chain to make sure the goods are delivered timely.

When it comes to growth of company only credibility doesn’t help much. For growth one always needs funds to expand. Sachin & Binny knew that well, and so they approached VC’s & investors. Realizing the potential of their business investors gladly chipped in. Raising funds Sachin & Binny gave away stakes to investors and propelled the company at a rate that wasn’t estimated. Who would have thought that the two employees of Amazon could be one day their biggest competitor in India. This was all made possible because of the funding they raised. Being Flipkart founder Sachin & Binny Bansal holds only 7.5% share of it, all the rest is sold to investors.

Major shareholders of Flipkart are Tiger Global International II Holdings that holds 30.86%, Intervision Holding B.V has 22.44% & Accel India Venture II Ltd. Has 8.98% shares of Flipkart.

Every Entrepreneur knows the benefit of raising funds through VC & Investors. The ideology of being the 100% shareholder of own company is wiped out as we all know bigger investment generates better return. All the major players of all the fields have VC’s & investors as associates, whether it’s Google or Apple Inc. or whoever. They all know the eternal truth “Together We Stand Divided We Fall”.