Year of reckoning for India Inc: Flipkart in Walmart's cart for $16 billion

Binny Bansal's exit gave the fairy tale valuation story another twist

The summer of 2018 brought along the hottest deal of the year. In May, the American brick and mortar biggie Walmart signed up to acquire a controlling stake in India’s largest e-commerce company Flipkart in an eye-popping $16-billion deal. If fund-raising from marquee foreign investors was defining the start-up space in the country so far, the Walmart-Flipkart deal took the definition to another level, valuing the Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal-founded company at around $21 billion. The investor markdowns of the past months were washed away in a single stroke, establishing firmly the worth of the business that was started