Just like the paypal mafia transformed silicon valley after the dot-com bust of 2001. Giving rise to some of America's most innovative startups. The flipkart mafia comprised of enterprising former flipkart employees has transformed India's startup ecosystem and full disclosure. Here we did not come up with that term just google flipkart mafia and you'll see that people have been talking about this group for years. In fact, as of 2017 more than 200 companies had been created by flipsters and that number is likely significantly higher at the time of us writting this post in 2021. This is why we wanted to highlight some of the most noteworthy and successful startups that have been created by the flipkart mafia.
Top 10 Indian Startups Founded by the Flipkart Mafia
10. Suki
Starting off at number 10 we have the only startup on this list that isn't Indian. Although it was created by Indians in California. Suki founded by former flipkart chief product officer pune. Suki along with anshu sharma and karthik rajan in 2017. Suki is an Ai-powered voice-enabled digital assistant that helps doctors to expedite the process of completing administrative tasks. So that they have more time for their patients. doctors in the united states spend twice as much time filling out electronic health records than they do with their patients. So suki's primary goal is to change that this digital assistant takes notes fills out electronic health records schedules appointments retrieves, patient medical history and even recommends medicine dosages and refills. The startup was featured in fast company's list of the 10 most innovative health companies of 2020. So far they've raised 40 million dollars from their investors in order to continue making American healthcare more patient-oriented.
9. Ok Credit
Next up at number nine we have a bengaluru-based book keeping app called ok credit. Which was founded by former flipkart employees gaurav kumar and harsh bokarna along with their college friend aditya prasad. Before founding the company they were regularly buying groceries at their local kirana shop on credit. These accounts were recorded in a physical notebook which they realized was a very popular and also very antiquated way of bookkeeping that was ripe for disruption. In 2016 they onboarded their local kirana shopkeeper as their first customer and their user base has been growing ever since. Ok credit is now used by 23 million small and medium-sized businesses across India and has expanded their offerings to include a digital storefront builder and a staff attendance and salary tracker. They've been able to build these additions in part thanks to the help of their investors who so far have pumped 84.2 million dollars into the startup.
8. VoGo
Moving on to number eight now we have bengaluru-based dockless scooter rental startup vogo. Which was founded by flipster ananda yadurai along with Padmanabhan balakrishnan and sanjit mittal in 2015. But anan's entrepreneurial journey actually began while he was working at flipkart. He was put in charge of launching televisions on the platform despite the fact that he knew nothing about televisions or e-commerce for that matter. By working hard and thinking outside of the box though he was able to do it successfully. This experience gave him the confidence to start vogo with his co-founders in 2015 with the goal of providing Indians with affordable accessible and convenient self-transportation. Today vogo scooters have completed 10 million rides and the company is now working on electrifying their fleet with the help of their investors who have pumped 180 million dollars into the startup so far.
7. Slice
Coming in at number seven now we have bengaluru-based fintech startup slice. Which was founded by former flipkart employee rajam bajaj along with deepak malhotra in 2016. See in India you usually need to be employed before the bank will trust you enough to give you a credit card. But the problem is that by that point the years which you should have spent learning how to use a credit card responsibly under the supervision of your parents has been wasted. Which is why slice launched a credit card for millennials in 2019 with no annual charges, no joining fees and no hidden costs. Which has enabled them to onboard more than 000 customers. They plan to increase that number to 1 million customers by the end of this financial year. To do this they've embraced the support of investors who have pumped 73.7 million dollars into slice.
6. Spinny
So far next up at number six we have guru gram based omni-channel used car retail platform spinny. Which was founded by flipster mohit gupta along with naraj singh and raman shumahor in 2015. One way in which spinney stands out is their next day shipping. Which isn't a big deal for small items like electronics or clothing. But we're talking about cars here many used car marketplaces deemed this kind of delivery speed impossible. Before spinney showed up but because mohit gupta was the associate director of delivery operations at flipkart. Where he handled same-day and next-day shipping spinney is able to do this flawlessly. Spinny is currently operating across eight Indian cities. They plan to expand to seven more in the next couple of months using the funds that they've raised from their investors who so far have pumped 230.5 million dollars into the startup.
5. Navi
Moving under number five now we have bengaluru-based fintech startup Navi technologies. After selling his 5.5 stake in flipkart for a billion dollars. Sachin bunsel one of the company's founders decided to start something new with former bank of america director ankit agarwal in 2018. The goal of navi technologies is to revolutionize India's banking, financial services, and insurance industry. They're doing this very quickly through an inorganic growth strategy that relies heavily on acquisitions. Since 2018 they've acquired four different companies mainly by tapping sachin bunsel's personal fortune and these acquisitions have enabled them to rapidly launch lending and insurance products like navi finserv, navi general insurance and navi mutual fund. So far navi technologies has raised 583 million dollars some of which has come directly out of sachin's pocket and some of which has been raised from external investors.
4. Groww
Coming in at number four now we have bengaluru-based online investment platform groww. olive growth's founders are former Flipkart employees there's harsh jain, ishaan bansal, lalit kishray and niraj singh. In 2016 they identified a massive opportunity and the fact that only about a tenth of the people in India who had investable income were actually investing it. To change that they launched a mutual funds awareness campaign and embraced technology like UPI and ekyc to make investing easy and stress free for their customers. These innovations paid off groww now has 15 million customers and became a unicorn in 2021. They also recently bought a 21 year old financial services company called Indiabulls which is an acquisition that they were able to afford thanks to their investors, who so far have pumped 140 million dollars into the startup.
3. Cult.fit
Next up at number three we have bengaluru-based health and fitness startup cult fit. Flipkart's former chief business officer ankit nagori started cult fit along with serial entrepreneur and former flipkart head of commerce and advertising mukesh bansal. Ankit and Mukesh both share a passion for fitness. They felt that in 2016 this was a passion that they could turn into a brand and sell to Indian people in the form of clean professional, well-equipped fitness centers. Of course, when the Covid 19 pandemic hit all of cult fit's more than 130 centers were shut down. This resulted in the company adopting an omnichannel model, where they offer personalized online fitness training. Now as a loss-making company the pandemic may have been the end of cult fit, if it weren't for their investors who so far have pumped 480 million dollars into the startup.
2. PhonePe
Moving in our number two now we have bengaluru-based digital payment startup PhonePe. Back in 2011 flipkart acquired a startup that connected music publishers with music producers called mime 360. In an effort to build flight flipkart's own music streaming service similar to iTunes. Mine 360's founders samir nigum, rahul jari, and borzen engineer were actually hired in this deal. But unfortunately flipkart shut flight down in 2015 prompting mime 360's founders to start something new phonepe an upi-based payments platform that flipkart actually acquired before it was even launched see flipkart had also unsuccessfully tried to launch a payment gateway called pay zippy. They felt that phone pay succeeded where pay zippy had failed since its launch in 2016 phonepe has become India's market leader in upi transactions and as a separate entity from Flipkart it's currently valued at 5.5 billion dollars.
1. Udaan
Finally coming in at number one we have bengaluru-based b2b e-commerce unicorn udaan. Which is another one of those startups where all of the founders are x flipkart there's amod malvia flipkart's former cto sujit kumar who handled operations and vaibhav gupta who was in charge of products business finance and analytics. Together they decided to do in the b2b space what flipkart had done in the b2c space by launching an e-commerce platform for traders wholesalers and retailers in 2017. Just one year later udan had achieved unicorn status and today udaan offers a catalog of 500 000 products and they facilitate more than 4.5 million transactions every month. Of course one of the reasons why they've been able to build such an extensive network in such a short span of time is because of their investors who so far have pumped 1.2 billion dollars into Udaan so far.
All right those were our picks for the top 10 startups that were created by the flipkart mafia. I hope you enjoyed the post , Thank You.
JAI HIND | VANDE MATARAM
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