After Binny Bansal stepped down from the role of Group CEO and Chairman in Flipkart in November last year, he has been stacking up his funds to make investments in the startup ecosystem.
In 2017, Bansal’s financial advisor Sailesh Tulshan had started a fund called 021 Ventures (read zero-to-one ventures), and Bansal due to his close association with Tulshan has become the largest investor and anchor in the fund.
This fund had now made its first close of $32 million (almost Rs 222 crore). One-third of this first close has been poured in by half a dozen former and current Flipkart group executives.
Ananth Narayanan, who had recently quit Myntra as the CEO, is a Limited Partner in the fund and counts as one of the ex Flipkart group executives. Others include PhonePe’s Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari, MakeMyTrip’s India CEO Rajesh Magow, former Flipkart executive Mekin Maheshwari, and Myntra and Curefit cofounder Mukesh Bansal.
Wipro’s Chairman’s Azim Premji Foundation has also joined the list of major LPs by becoming an institutional investor in the Tulshan floated and Bansal led VC firm.
From Silicon Valley, former Facebook executive Ruchi Singhvi, and former Dropbox exec Aditya Agarwal have also invested in the fund.
In the overall investment economy, Binny Bansal has pulled out from several ventures that he had been backing earlier, like pi Ventures, Blume Ventures, and India Quotient. He still remains close to 021, nevertheless.
Bansal and Tulshan form the two-member investment committee in the venture that decides upon the portfolio and ticket size. As per ET report, several other LPs plan on giving advisory notes as well.
Till now, the VC has invested in at least six companies including Pandorum Technologies and Ycook.
To further its portfolio, AI, biotech, agritech, supply chain, logistics, and consumer internet are the few segments that the firm has decided to target in future. Along with these segments in India, the fund also plans on investing in SEA countries like Indonesia and Singapore.
Tulshan and Bansals have a long financial synergy whereby the former had played an instrumental role in the investments Bansals had made in Stellapps, Niramai Health Analytix, and Sigtuple. He has recently guided in the Binny Bansal’s investment in Acko’s $25 million funding round.
It can be seen that Tulshan and Bansal make quite a team, and 021 Ventures might become instrumental in making the startup funds come full circle, given that Bansal is negotiating $100 million payout from Walmart owned Flipkart. He had recently also set up xto10x startup.
