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Does the exit of co-founder Binny Bansal from Flipkart signal a new start-up era?

- Ajay Sukumaran

After the festive season’s big discounts came the big shoc­ker from India’s e­commerce industry—Binny Bansal, the co­founder of flipkart, left the company under a cloud, just three months after the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, acquired majority controlling stake in the company. By most accounts, it was this abrupt turn of events—Bansal resigned following an investigation into allegations of “serious personal misconduct”—that left everybody, including the employees, surprised.

While industry observers reckon Bansal’s exit from the company was not entirely unanticipated, given that Walmart holds 77 per cent stake in Flipkart, the sudden announcement took many by surprise. Walmart’s statement hinted as much: “Binny has been contemplating a transition for some time and we have been working together on a succession plan, which has now been accelerated.” Soon after, Flipkart got down to a merger of its fashion brands Myntra and Jabong, which would, expectedly, involve a rejig.

A founder moving out following an acquisition isn’t, by itself, a surprise, reckons K. Vaitheeswaran, e-commerce pioneer and author of Failing to Succeed: The Story of India’s First E-commerce Company. “Sooner or later, you would have expected it to happen,” he says, adding that he had expected Bansal to have continued for a few quarters after the acquisition. But Vaitheeswaran feels it won’t impact Walmart’s strategy.

“Sure, something like this is a surprise and a blip. In my view, really nothing changes. They’ll still execute by their playbook,” he says.