Flipkart was founded in 2007 by two former Amazon employees, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (no relation), who saw massive potential in India’s nascent online shopping market. Starting as an online bookstore, the company grew into India’s most valuable e-commerce platform.
Walmart acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart in 2018 for roughly $16 billion — the largest e-commerce acquisition in history at the time. The deal valued Flipkart at about $20.8 billion and gave Walmart a strong foothold in one of the world’s fastest-growing consumer markets.
Flipkart’s marketplace hosts hundreds of thousands of sellers across categories including electronics, fashion, home goods, and groceries. The platform runs several high-profile annual sale events — particularly “Big Billion Days” — that generate billions of dollars in gross merchandise value within just a few days.
The company has invested heavily in logistics through its subsidiary Ekart, which handles last-mile delivery even in remote rural areas. Flipkart also operates Myntra (fashion), Cleartrip (travel), and PhonePe (digital payments), creating an ecosystem that touches multiple aspects of daily life in India.
Flipkart’s innovations include cash-on-delivery (critical in a market where credit card penetration was historically low), easy returns, and vernacular language support. The company serves over 500 million registered users and has been exploring an IPO that could value it above $35 billion.
