Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal set to foray into financial services

After pocketing about $1 billion from Flipkart's deal, Sachin Bansal is now on a investment spree. He is looking and grabbing better available investment opportunities across business segments.

Earlier this week, Flipkart co-founder invested about 10 per cent of his Flipkart fortunes in homegrown ride-hailing firm Ola.

Now, Bansal is planning to make an investment in financial services due to the scope of innovation and unprecedented scale in it. He is exploring the segment and seeking advice from financial experts.

He reportedly had discussions with RBI's official regarding regulatory needs and the requirement to start a bank.

According to RBI rules, for anyone to be eligible to a banking licence, he/she must bring in equity of at least Rs 500 crore and have 10 years experience in successfully running a business venture.

India is expected to see significant growth in technology coming from the financial services sector. Digitally invested assets under management (AUM) are likely to grow by nearly 80 per cent from Rs 250 billion in 2018 to Rs 450 billion in 2019, as per Deloitte.

He, as per the Mint report, may allocate several hundred crores for venture debt deals and may look to route his investments through his newly formed holding company, BAC Acquisitions Pvt. Ltd, which he launched with the help of investment banker Ankit Agarwal.

Two months ago, Sachin along with one of his IITD batchmate Agarwal launched holding entity, BAC Acquisitions. Last month, he put in the first round of investment Rs 50 crore into the entity.

Bansal, who co-founded Flipkart over a decade ago with Binny Bansal, had quit after the US-based retail firm Walmart acquired a 77 per cent stake in the Bengaluru-based online retail company for $16 billion in May last year.

In the last four years, he has made about 12 investments in startups including Inshorts, Unacademy, Ather Energy, Sigtuple, Plabo Networks, and Tracxn.