Helion's first bet on mobile transaction startup JiGrahak failed on timing
Rahul Chandra · Episode 54 | Rahul Chandra, Managing Director, Unitary Helion Fund · Mar 2, 2020 · at 14:53
Rahul Chandra (co-founder of Helion Ventures) reflects on Helion's early portfolio investments in 2006 when internet and smartphone penetration in India was minimal.
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“The first bet we took was a very promising company. You know, fundamentally it made a lot of sense. It was called G. Grahag. Great entrepreneur you know, thinking product first, but in an ecosystem which was very hard, ah, to actually roll that product out to a wider audience, ah, and just the sweat and effort that go, you know, went into getting that product into people's hand was, you know, was just sucking the energy out, ah, you know, it was costing us, it was taking time, ah, and, ah, just hard to show traction, right? And, Back then, a million users just seemed like a lot of people, right? Unlike now where you know, you quickly run up to two to three million users and, you know, internet helps just such a rapid adoption. The business was simple. It was talking about how do you transact on smartphones. You know, like I said, the logic was very sound. People will adopt smartphones because they want to transact. And, ah, you know, we, ah, were not successful because, you know, again, the idea was great. Timing was wrong. I think that, you know, the team tried its best, but just didn't work out.”
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