Kunal Bahl is an Indian entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder of the e-commerce company ‘Snapdeal, and the capital market company ‘Titan Capital.’
Wiki/Biography
Kunal Bahl was born on Sunday, 1 January 1984 (age 40 years; as of 2024) in New Delhi, India. His zodiac sign is Capricorn. Kunal completed his schooling at the Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, New Delhi. In 2002, he enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania, and in 2006, he graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology. Kunal earned two bachelor’s degrees in the field of entrepreneurship, which were Operation and Information Management from The Wharton School in Pennsylvania, and Engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Pennsylvania (2002-2006). In 2006, Kunal completed a one-year course of Executive program in Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, United States.
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 5″
Weight (approx.): 75 kg
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Dark Brown
Family
Parents & Siblings
Kunal Bahl’s father, Rasiklal Meswani, was a businessman, and he passed away when Kunal was just 14 years old. Kunal’s mother is a retired interior designer. Kunal has 2 brothers named Nikhil Bahl and Viraj Bahl. Viraj Bahl is the founder and managing director of VRB Consumer (Veeba Food Services Pvt Ltd).
Wife & Children
Kunal got married to Yashna in the year 2012. Yashna is the owner of a confectionery business. The couple was blessed with their first child in 2015, which was a daughter. In 2018, Kunal and his wife were blessed with a son named Aadidev.
Relationships
Kunal Bahl and his wife Yashna dated for a long time and later got married in 2012.
Career
Snapdeal
In 2007, Kunal Bahl along with his childhood friend Rohit Bansal started a company named ‘Jasper Infotech Private Limited,’ which sold discount coupons, first offline and then online. In 2010, both partners founded a company called ‘Snapdeal,’ which initially sold customers discount coupons for restaurants, hotels, and movie theatres. Later in 2011, Snapdeal was converted into a marketplace-based e-commerce company that now focuses on selling fashion, home and general merchandise.
The founders of Snapdeal, Rohit Bansal (left) and Kunal Bahl
Kunal Bahl at Sanpdeal office
Titan Capital
In 2015, Kunal Bahl along with Rohit Bansal founded a new capital market company called ‘Titan Captial,’ which invests in entrepreneurs who are aiming to create wide-scale businesses in the market. The company has invested in various successful ventures that include Ola, Urban Company, Mamaearth, and Ofbusiness.
AceVector Group
In 2022, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal founded ‘AceVector Group,’ which is a holding company of Snapdeal, Unicommerce, and Stellaro Brands. While making it official, Kunal Bahl wrote a blog stating
It is appropriate for us to formalise a group structure that highlights the broader scope of opportunities we have been pursuing as a company along with the distinct nature of each business, beyond our e-commerce marketplace – Snapdeal and it will bring together innovation in distribution channels, digital-first consumer brands and SaaS platforms.”
Piramal Enterprises Limited
Kunal Bahl is the independent director of Piramal Enterprises Limited, a flagship company of Piramal Group, which is active in financial services and is involved in retail lending, housing finance, and vehicle financing.
Investcorp India SPAC
Kunal Bahl serves as the director of a leading Indian conglomerate and Investcorp India Acquisition Corp, a SPAC.
Controversies
Booked for selling medicines online
In 2015, an FIR was filed against Snapdeal’s CEO Kunal Bahl for the sale of prescription drugs on his e-commerce website. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Department raided the Jasper Infotech premises, which owns Snapdeal in Mumbai. The FDA stated that the reports claim that the website sells a few cough syrups and tablets online, which are only meant to be given out if it is officially prescribed by a medical practitioner. The FDA issued a notice to the company to delist all such products and an official statement was made by Snapdeal associates saying that
In this matter, we are assisting the FDA team in this investigation and we will continue to do so. We have already delisted the products and said sellers and also stopped payment, in addition to providing all information to the FDA team as required by them.”
Summoned for taking over marketing concept
In 2017, an engineer and entrepreneur Gaurav Dua filed a complaint on alleged charges that the e-commerce company ‘Snapdeal’ had taken over his idea of connecting sellers and buyers through one platform. Additional Sessions Judge R K Tripathi of the Delhi High Court issued a legal summon to the CEO Kunal Bahl, COO Rohit Bansal, and former chief financial officer Vijay Ajmera in regard to cheating with Gaurav Dua by promising collaboration and stealing his “non-inventory holding marketplace model for retail.” The complaint was filed under sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, which was dismissed by a trial court earlier. Gaurav Dua then filed a revision petition before the sessions court. The legal claim was quoted stating that
Snapdeal founders, who claimed to champion the approach which put them ahead of other e-commerce companies, cheated Dua in the garb of collaboration with him and raising venture funds for his validated business.”
Booked for selling fake products
In 2019, businessman and congress leader Indermohan Singh Honey from Kota, Rajasthan, filed a case at the Gumanpura police station in Kota, against the founders of Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, for delivering fake branded products. The founders were booked for cheating under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. The complainant complained about receiving fake products from the Snapdeal website after ordering the original Woodland waist belt and a wallet.
A criminal case for allowing the sale of a drug
In 2021, the founders of Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal were sued by Mr Amandeep Chawla who is the owner of M/s Adept Biocare for allowing the sale of the drug – Suhagra-100 tablets, which contains Sildenafil Citrate, on its online portal without possessing a valid license. An individual named Manjunath placed an online order on Snapdeal for the tablets and received the order in November 2020. M/s Adept Biocare is the manufacturer and seller of the tablets and claimed that Snapdeal had no drug license to sell SUHAGRA-100. The founders and their company were charged under Section 18(c) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 (‘DC Act’), which is punishable under Section 27(b)(ii) of the DC Act.
Awards, Honours, Achievements
- 2014: Entrepreneurs of the Year Award at the 36th Bombay Management Association (BMA) Awards.
- 2014: EY Entrepreneur of the Year – Startup 2014.
- 2014: Nasscom NextGen Entrepreneur.
- 2015: The Economic Times Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
- 2015: AIMA Transformational Business Leader of the Year.
- 2015: Indian Affairs Business Leader of the Year.
- 2018: The Joseph Wharton Award for Young Leadership.
- 2019: The Economic Times Comeback Award.
Net Worth
The shareholders have set Kunal Bahl’s remuneration as fixed compensation of Rs 3.5 crore and a performance bonus of Rs 1.5 crore; as of 2024.
Facts/Trivia
- Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal were classmates at Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, New Delhi.Friends turned business partners, Kunal Bahl (left) and Rohit Bansal (right)
- In 2009, while running Jasper Infotech, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal did not have that much money in their company’s account to pay off the salaries of their employees. They both had to take some money out from their personal bank accounts to pay off the dues and were left with less than one lakh rupees in each of their accounts.
- In 2011, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal took a visit to China and saw how giant the Chinese online marketplace Alibaba.com was. That’s when both of them decided to remodel their company and make it a marketplace.
- Kunal was featured in the ET Top 50 Entrepreneur of India 2014 list.
- In 2014, he was ranked 25 on Fortune 40 under 40 most influential business leaders list.
- In 2015, Kunal was appointed to the board of governors of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and serves as an elected member.
- Kunal is also an active angel investor having invested in 120+ technology companies in India, the US and South East Asia, across consumer internet, fintech, direct-to-consumer brands, AI, and deep-tech.
- In 2019, he was appointed as a member of the Nasscom Executive Committee, which serves the interests of diverse members across sectors and regions and also provides the requisite governance to the same.
- In 2020, Kunal Bahl was appointed as the Chairman of CII’s E-Commerce Committee.
- He serves on the National Startup Advisory Council, a committee to advise the Indian government on efforts needed to build a strong startup ecosystem.
- When Kunal was in the United States, he worked with Microsoft for a little while until he was forced to leave the country as his US work visa application was rejected.
Kunal Bahl’s LinkedIn post about his experience in Microsoft and visa rejection