Book to tell Flipkart's story

A new book will recount the story of how the Bansals built Flipkart and how internet entrepreneurship was made a desirable occupation.

Written by Mihir Dalal, "Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story" is also a story of big money, power and hubris, as both business and interpersonal complexities weakened the founders' control over their creation and forced them to sell out to a retailer whose dominance they had once dreamt of emulating, publisher Pan Macmillan India said.

IIT graduates Sachin and Binny Bansal founded the company out of a Bengaluru apartment which went on to become India's biggest e-commerce startup. Established in October 2007, Flipkart began as an online bookstore.

Subsequently, the startup's reputation grew, so did its value, with venture capitalists in India and abroad investing.

The book was acquired at auction from Anish Chandy at Labyrinth Literary Agency and its screen adaptation rights have been acquired by a leading producer, Pan Macmillan said.

According to Dalal, little is known about the people behind Flipkart and the entire story of its journey as it unfurled during the process of writing the book, was still an eye-opener for him.

Pan Macmillan managing director Rajdeep Mukherjee termed the book as a must-read for anyone who has ever shopped online.

Senior Commissioning Editor of the publishing house Teesta Guha Sarkar said the book is a "brilliantly recorded, superbly recounted tale for our times, about dreams and destiny, friendships and failures, ambition and power, as they played out within and around India's largest internet startup".

The book will be out in October.