Kunal Bahl joined the trend when Shark Tank India’s makers decided to appoint him as a judge in season 4, which aired on January 6th, 2025. Because teasers released by the Shark Tank makers showed Kunal Bahl’s unexpected personality, which matched with the former shark Ashneer Grover, and netizens loved this attitude.
Kunal Bahl is the co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal, an e-commerce platform with a billion-dollar valuation. Kunal Bahl’s journey from unicorn to zero to hero has countless twists and turns. Let’s explore his journey from disappointment in IIT to H1B Visa rejection to multi-billion-dollar unicorns in this article.
Table of Contents
Kunal Bahl’s journey from Delhi to the United States and back to India.
Kunal Bahl, co-founder of Snapdeal, India’s one of leading e-commerce platforms, was born in India. He completed his initial school at Delhi Public School R.K. Puram New Delhi. He wanted to get into IIT but couldn’t, which he regrets.
Without any further disappointment, he applied to the University of Pennsylvania and got the admission. At the University of Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology, earning two bachelor’s degrees, one in Operation & Information Management and another in Engineering.
He finished an executive marketing program at Kellogg School of Management. He joined Microsoft for a very short period of time, because his H1B visa was rejected, and had to leave the country United States. He wanted to live in the US for some years to explore the venture environment but he couldn’t and came back to India.
Kunal Bahl’s move to build e-commerce unicorn Snapdeal.
After his H1B visa was rejected, unfortunately, he had to return back to India. Without regretting his past he and his childhood friend Rohit Bansal tried to pave their way toward entrepreneurship. According to Wikipedia, “Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal established an Indian E-commerce company in February 2010 named Snapdeal.
It became India’s earliest unicorn, where in 2016, Snapdeal commanded a valuation of $6.5 billion (around ₹55k crore), solidifying its position as the second largest e-commerce entity in India, trailing only behind Flipkart in terms of market prominence, according to Etedge-Inshights.
At this point, Snapdeal was at its best face, where it attracted prominent investors Like Ratan Tata, eBay, SoftBank, and Nexus Venture. At the same time, it acquired 11 companies to expand its portfolio, including notable names like Freecharge and Unicommerce.
but suddenly something happened, bringing the company to the edge of closure. The company did some things that came out to be a burden for it such as the Company’s acquisition to expand its portfolio went unsuccessful, its Diwali campaign with actor Amir Khan ‘Dil ki Diwali’ stuck in controversy due to comments made by Amir Khan personal capacity, and attempt to merge with Flipkart also fell through.
All these factors brought the company from second position to bankruptcy, with funds left, the company could barely go for one month, and raising capital was far harder than it had been during a similar crisis in 2013. Moreover, Amazon and Flipkart were tightening their dominance in the Indian Market making the matter more tougher for Snapdeal.
As soon as Covid hit, Snapdeal India disappeared from the market, leaving no expectation to come back as Amazon and Flipkart had already tightened their grip in the market. But Co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit were not ready to give up easily, to comeback Snapdeal India, they pursued a new strategy which they named Snapdeal 2.0.
This strategy yielded strong results as Kunal Bahl shared a LinkedIn post writing, ” “On September 19, Snapdeal’s total monthly transacting customers hit the highest number in the history of the company. Setbacks happen. So do comebacks.”
According to Wikipedia, From 2017 to 2021, Snapdeal’s revenue grew by 74% at its peak, while losses were cut by nearly 95%. Between the financial years 2018 and 2020, the number of unique customers on Snapdeal’s platform also tripled to 27 million. More than 90% of Snapdeal’s orders came from non-metro users.
Kunal Bahl is already a part of a reality show before joining Shark Tank India 4.
Kunal Bahl is gaining popularity after being invited as a Judge in Shark Tank India 4 by its makers. But Kunal Bahl has already been a judge on a reality show. Kunal Bahl was one of the three main judges and investors in Prime Video’s reality TV show named “Mission Start Ab” which aired on 19 December 2023.
But Kunal Bahl didn’t get as much fame in “Mission Start Ab” as on Shark Tank India. The teaser released by Shark Tank India makers went viral on all social. Kunal Bahl became the most discussed personality among all the Sharks, because his attitude was the same as former Shark Ashneer Grover’s, and the audience loved this.
Snapdeal to Titan Capita, an early-stage venture capital firm.
Kunal Bahl is also a co-founder of Titan Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm in India, which invested in today’s successful companies in their initial stages like Ola, Urban Company, Mamaearth, Credgenics, Shadowfax, Razorpay, Giva, and more.
Well-known Titan Capital, run by two co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, has made returns of over 100x of investments in companies like Ola, Urban Company, and Mamaearth, among others.
Kunal Bahl’s net worth.
There is no official data on Kunal Bahl’s net worth, but several media reports mention different estimates. According to these media reports, Kunal Bahl’s net worth is estimated to be around ₹3,500 crore.
Read This Also: This YouTuber is offering ‘Top Market Salary+% Of His Revenue’ for a Chief of Staff role, taunting at Deepinder Goyal.
