Most Disastrous Failed Acquisitions in Indian Startup History

These are some of the most disastrous startup acquisitions in Indian startup history: 00:00 Intro 0:23 Snapdeal Acquires Freecharge 05:46 BYJU'S Acquires WhiteHat Jr 11:15 Zomato Acquires Urbanspoon Snapdeal Acquires Freecharge: At one point, Snapdeal was India’s second-largest e-commerce platform, behind Flipkart. With a $5B valuation, CEO Kunal Bahl was confident, predicting Snapdeal would top Flipkart's sales by 2016. To compete with Flipkart’s $4B GMV, Snapdeal acquired Freecharge, founded by Kunal Shah, for $400M, aiming to leverage its 20M users to drive Snapdeal’s growth and build a mobile wallet like Paytm. However, the demographics didn’t align. Freecharge’s young user base didn’t convert to e-commerce sales, and Snapdeal’s investments in cashbacks and discounts drained its resources. Snapdeal’s aggressive expansion—five acquisitions and ventures like Vulcan Express—burned through its funds, depleting their capital during a funding winter. This, coupled with investor conflicts, led to Snapdeal being unable to secure needed investments. As losses mounted, they sold Freecharge to Axis Bank for just $60M, an 85% loss. BYJU'S Acquires WhiteHat Jr: BYJU’S acquisition of WhiteHat Jr in 2020 aimed to expand globally. Founder Karan Bajaj profited, but BYJU’S faced backlash for misleading ads about a fictional student named Wolf Gupta. Operational costs soared, driven by aggressive marketing and the challenge of scaling a one-on-one teaching model. By 2022, WhiteHat Jr. contributed significantly to BYJU’S losses. The focus shifted to integrating WhiteHat Jr. into BYJU’S American operations, but the market had cooled post-pandemic, rendering the acquisition’s value questionable. Zomato Acquires Urbanspoon: Zomato’s acquisition of Urbanspoon marked a strategic expansion into the American market. However, competition from Swiggy in India forced a change in focus. Swiggy’s aggressive growth outpaced Zomato, and Zomato's attempts to catch up in India and keep pace with Swiggy left its international ambitions with Urbanspoon and other acquired companies faltering. By 2021, Zomato exited the US and other international markets, dissolving its American subsidiary, effectively ending the Urbanspoon legacy.