Binny Bansal plans to buy 10% stake in volleyball team Bengaluru Torpedoes

Binny Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, is in advanced talks to buy a stake in Bengaluru Torpedoes, the Bengaluru franchise of the Prime Volleyball League (PVL).

Entrepreneur-turned-investor Bansal is looking to acquire a 10% stake in the firm for Rs 10 crore, valuing the team at Rs 100 crore, according to a report by The Economic Times.

YourStory could not independently verify this report.

Bansal's investment in the firm comes at a time when interest in non-cricket tournaments is picking up in India. The viewership of PVL's second season this year grew more than 50% over last year, to 206 million, according to data from BARC.

PVL is a tournament similar to the Indian Premier League (IPL), with eight teams based in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad, and other cities.

Ankit Nagori, Founder of cloud kitchen startup Curefoods, is one of the key owners of Bengaluru Torpedoes. He was also a former senior executive at Flipkart.

Nagori holds around 50% stake in the team; Bansal will own around 10% once the deal goes through, while the rest is owned by sports management firm Baseline Ventures.

Last year, PhonePe founders Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari bought the Mumbai franchise of PVL, called the Mumbai Meteors.

Earlier investments

Bansal has been an angel investor and early-stage backer in various startups. He has also increased his investment bets in later stages as well.

Bansal, who has stepped up his investment pace in recent months, led Three State Ventures to invest Rs 240 crore in Curefoods. He holds 5% of the cloud kitchen startup.

Bansal is also in talks to infuse around $100 million to $150 million in digital payments and financial service startup PhonePe.