Binny Bansal (born 1982/1983) is an Indian billionaire Internet entrepreneur. In 2007 he co-founded the

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manag ...

platform

Flipkart Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bengaluru, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categorie ...

with Sachin Bansal (no relation) and served as the

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the " C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if ...

until 11 January 2016 and was then promoted to chief executive officer (CEO). In January 2017 he was promoted to Group CEO and resigned in November 2018 due to personal misconduct allegations of Flipkart. Binny is from

Chandigarh Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which al ...

and graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi with a degree in

computer science and engineering Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) is an academic program at many universities which comprises scientific and engineering aspects of computing. CSE is also a term often used in Europe to translate the name of engineering informatics academic ...

. He is currently an anchor investor in the venture firm 021 Capital which focuses on investing in the fields of

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

, agritech, and the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

Early life

Binny Bansal is originally from

, the capital city of

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the I ...

and

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ...

. His business partner, Sachin Bansal, is also from Chandigarh. Although they share the same last name, they are not related. They both coincidentally, were students of computer science engineering at

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi is a public institute of technology located in New Delhi, India. It is one of the 23 IITs created to be Centres of Excellence for training, research and development in science, engineering and technolo ...

. Bansal currently resides in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

. His father is a retired chief manager at a bank and his mother is in the government sector. He has no siblings and is married to a homemaker.

Career

Before co-founding Flipkart, Binny was employed by

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

for nine months, and before that he had been rejected by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

twice. Binny Bansal and his business partner Sachin Bansal initially thought of starting a comparison search engine, but realized that the market for

E-commerce in India India has an Internet user base of about 636.77 million as of May 2020, about 40% of the population. Despite being the second-largest user base in world, only behind China (650 million, 48% of population), the penetration of e-commerce is low ...

was very small. Hence, after leaving Amazon in 2007, they founded Flipkart as an e-commerce company. Before joining Amazon, Binny had worked with Sarnoff Corporation for a year and a half, where he developed a lane sensor device for cars which would warn you and beep automatically if you changed lanes without giving a signal. In 2016, Binny Bansal became the CEO of Flipkart, where he worked on strategic development, direction and business management. In 2017, he assumed the role of CEO of Flipkart Group and his previous position was handed to Kalyan Krishnamurthy. In 2018,

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart group. After the acquisition, Binny Bansal assumed the role of chairman and continued as Group CEO. His 5.5% stake in Flipkart was valued at $1 billion after the acquisition. He resigned from Flipkart in November 2018 on allegations of personal misconduct.

Awards and recognition

* In September 2015, Binny Bansal along with Sachin Bansal, was named the 86th richest person in India with a net worth of $1.3 billion by

Forbes India ''Forbes India'' is the Indian edition of ''Forbes'' which is managed by Reliance Industries-owned media conglomerate, Network 18. History and profile Since its founding in 2008, ''Forbes India'' has achieved a circulation of 50,000 copies and m ...

Rich List. * ''

India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new on ...

'' ranked him #26th along with Sachin Bansal in India's 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bansal, Binny Living people Businesspeople from Chandigarh Indian software engineers 20th-century Indian businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) IIT Delhi alumni Indian chief operating officers Amazon (company) people Indian billionaires Flipkart people Indian Internet company founders Indian technology chief executives Indian technology company founders Indian online retailer founders St. Anne's Convent School, Chandigarh alumni 1980s births