Flipkart had in many ways set off India’s startup revolution by becoming the first truly mainstream unicorn, but it didn’t stop there — it’s helped birth many more.
Long before “startup ecosystem” became a term Indian business news used every day, Flipkart was quietly running a finishing school for founders. Employees who joined as engineers, finance analysts, and product managers in the company’s early years left with a playbook for building at scale, and a good number of them went on to use it. The Flipkart alumni network is now often compared to the PayPal Mafia in Silicon Valley, and estimates put the number of startups founded by former Flipkart employees at well over 150, with several of them going on to become unicorns in their own right, or in a few cases, public companies. Here’s a look at the unicorn startups founded by former Flipkart employees.
Navi — Sachin Bansal
Sachin Bansal co-founded Flipkart with Binny Bansal in 2007, and ran the company as CEO and later chairman until his exit in 2018 following Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition of the company. Bansal took a short break after leaving Flipkart before returning to entrepreneurship, founding Navi Technologies in December 2018 as a digital lending and insurance platform. He put a substantial part of his own Flipkart exit money into the venture. Navi has since expanded into home loans, health insurance, and mutual funds through a string of acquisitions.
Udaan — Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar, and Vaibhav Gupta
Udaan was started in 2016 by three Flipkart veterans who between them had run some of the company’s most critical functions. Amod Malviya was Flipkart’s CTO, Sujeet Kumar headed the operations team that built Ekart, and Vaibhav Gupta was a senior executive in Flipkart’s finance and business analytics function. The trio left the company together to build a B2B trade platform for India’s retailers and small businesses, and Udaan went on to become the fastest Indian startup at the time to cross a billion-dollar valuation. It has since raised money across several rounds, most recently at a valuation of around $1.8 billion, and has spoken of IPO plans for 2026.
Groww — Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal, and Neeraj Singh
Groww was founded in 2016 by four Flipkart product and engineering hands who wanted to simplify investing for retail Indians. Lalit Keshre led product at Flipkart, where he worked on Flipkart Quick and helped launch the Flipkart Marketplace, while Harsh Jain was also part of the product management team. The two were joined by Ishan Bansal and Neeraj Singh, also both Flipkart alumni, to start what began as a mutual fund distribution app. Groww grew into India’s largest retail broking platform by user count, overtaking players like Zerodha, and listed on Indian stock exchanges in November 2025. Its debut valued the company at close to $7 billion.
Cult.fit — Mukesh Bansal
Mukesh Bansal’s Flipkart connection actually runs the other way — he founded Myntra, which Flipkart acquired in 2014, after which Bansal joined Flipkart’s board and ran its fashion and commerce business. He left in 2016, alongside fellow Flipkart executive Ankit Nagori, to build Cure.fit, the parent of the Cult.fit fitness chain that has since expanded into gyms, diet plans, and mental wellness. Cult.fit filed for an IPO in 2025, targeting a valuation of roughly $2 billion, with backers including Tata Digital and Temasek on its cap table.
Rapido — Aravind Sanka
Aravind Sanka worked in supply-chain finance at Flipkart, where he helped scale the financial planning around Ekart’s logistics operations, before leaving to co-found a trucking aggregator called theKarrier with Pavan Guntupalli and Rishikesh SR. That business pivoted into Rapido, the bike-taxi platform that has since expanded into autos, cabs, and food delivery through its Ownly brand. Rapido entered the unicorn club in 2024 at a valuation of $1.1 billion, and has grown quickly since — its most recent funding round, led by Prosus in 2026, valued the company at roughly $3 billion.
PhonePe — Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari
PhonePe’s founders came from Flipkart’s engineering ranks rather than the other way around. Sameer Nigam was Flipkart’s SVP of Engineering, while Rahul Chari had built the technology behind Ekart, Flipkart’s logistics arm. The two left in 2015, along with Burzin Engineer, to build a UPI-native payments app that Flipkart itself went on to acquire within a year, for a reported $20 million. PhonePe has since become India’s largest UPI app by transaction volume, ahead of Google Pay, and was last valued at around $14.5 billion in a private round in late 2025. It filed confidentially for an IPO before pausing the process in early 2026 amid market volatility, with plans to resume once conditions stabilise.
Mensa Brands (now BRND.ME) — Ananth Narayanan
Ananth Narayanan ran Myntra and Jabong for Flipkart before leaving to launch Mensa Brands in 2021, a “house of brands” model that acquires and scales digital-first consumer brands, similar to the Thrasio playbook out of the US. Mensa became a unicorn within six months of launch, making it one of the fastest Indian startups to hit that milestone, at a valuation of roughly $1.2 billion. The company has since rebranded to BRND.ME and says it has turned profitable, with a portfolio spanning fashion, beauty, and personal care brands sold both in India and overseas.
Why so many unicorns trace back to one company
What’s striking about this list isn’t just the number of unicorns founded by Flipkart alumni, it’s how spread out they are across sectors — fintech, B2B trade, broking, fitness, mobility, payments, and D2C brands are all represented. Former Flipkart executives have said the company’s flat, execution-heavy culture and its habit of throwing young managers at large, ambiguous problems early in their careers is what pushed so many of them toward founding their own companies later. Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal have also personally backed a number of these startups as angel investors, with Binny Bansal alone investing in dozens of companies founded by former colleagues, extending Flipkart’s influence well beyond its own balance sheet. Whether the list of unicorn startups founded by former Flipkart employees keeps growing at this pace remains to be seen, but the company’s alumni network shows no signs of slowing down.