Young Entrepreneurs from Bansal Community Dominate India's Fast-Growing E-Commerce Sector

India has a rising number of entrepreneurial youth, and the country's e-commerce sector is a perfect example of how young Indians are capitalising on modern-era business ideas.

Notably, India's e-commerce industry is dominated by young people from the Bansal community.

Flipkart, India's largest ecommerce website, is run by two former Amazon employees, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal who are aged 32 and 31, respectively.

Founded in 2007, Flipkart on 29 July announced a fresh round of funding worth $1bn from a number of investors led by Tiger Global Management and Naspers, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's DST Global.

Following the funding round, Flipkart has an expected valuation of $7bn. The Bansals have a 15% stake valued at about $1bn.

FlipKart achieved more than $1bn in sales in 2013, and the company is expected to be the frontrunner to take on US ecommerce giants Amazon and eBay in India. It currently employs 14,000 people and has 22 million registered users. The company completes 4 million daily visits and delivers 5 million shipments per month.

The Bansals are aiming at a $100bn valuation for the company in about 15 years.

"There are very few internet companies in the world which are worth $100 billion. There are three in the US and one in China. I believe that such a company can be produced from India and we want to be that company. We want to see Indian internet companies prosper," said Sachin Bansal.

Other domestic etailers - Myntra, Snapdeal and Lenskart - are also headed by young men of the Bansal community. They along with Flipkart control about 85% of India's 120bn rupee e-commerce market.

Eyewear retailer Lenskart, which serves about 1,000 customers per day, is headed by Peyush Bansal (30). Peyush targets to open 100 stores across India in the next two years and revenues of 1bn rupees in fiscal year 2015.

Mukesh Bansal (38) founded fashion-focused website Myntra in 2007. It is acquired by Flipkart in May.

Another popular Indian ecommerce portal, Snapdeal, was founded by Rohit Bansal (31) in 2010. It recently received 8.3bn rupees in a capital infusion led by eBay.

"Certain communities in India do encourage entrepreneurship. The Bansals and Aggarwals have definitely dominated businesses in India, particularly retail trading, for centuries," India's Economic Times quoted Ashish Jhalani, head of retail advisory firm eTailing India, as saying.

India's online retail spending would grow at a compound annual growth rate of more than 50% over the next five years and reach $16bn by 2018, an eight-fold increase from 2013, according to Research firm Forrester.