How a $10M Helion bet on a struggling microfinance company reached IPO
Rahul Chandra · Episode 54 | Rahul Chandra, Managing Director, Unitary Helion Fund · Mar 2, 2020 · at 34:03
Rahul Chandra recounts writing a $10 million check from Helion Ventures' $140M fund into an Indian microfinance company that survived near-fatal regulatory changes to reach an IPO.
0:00 / 0:20exact quote · 20.0s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Ten million dollars was a large check from a one forty million dollar fund, And to see it, you know, just disappearing was very painful. Luckily, of course, you know, and again to, you know, kind of give me that learning that, you know, time is very unpredictable, that company actually came back and had an IPO.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Rahul Chandra
Why former operators who become VCs must stop thinking like operators
“The role of a VC is the full stop button for even an operator to stop thinking like an operator. And as long as you have the, Empathy to actually think like a founder you can overcome any handicap”
Rahul Chandra says VCs are as clueless as anyone else
“When you actually talk to A VC I think the point I wanted to bring out was they are probably as clueless as anybody else. You know, it's not like you know, they have a crystal ball. They're trying to decipher and learn with you and also take you know, a leap i…”
Walden created the first India-focused venture capital fund in 1996
“Walden was the first VC firm, ah, to actually create, ah, set up a India-focused fund along with Japanese investors Niko, a thirty million dollar fund investing one to two million dollars in Indian companies back in 96.”
Radical transparency is the defining trait of breakout founders
“I think my one word answer to that Siddharth would be transparency. And I think founders who follow an approach of transparency with their employees, with their co-founders, with their investors, I've seen that, that is a reflection of, you know, just honesty …”
The three investment pillars behind Helion's early bet on BigBasket
“So big basket, I think there were three things. One was that the founding team had done two startups before. I think the kind of, ah, challenges in a hard business like grocery, we felt was best handled by a team which had been there, done that, right? So, I m…”
Judging early traction in consumer startups requires more judgment than B2B
“So I think that you know, that vagueness in backing consumer startups, unlike a B to B startup where, you know, you absolutely get a fair idea, you know, from an enterprise customer of the, you know, the need and value for that product. I think it's very hard …”