The Ledger
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How a $10M Helion bet on a struggling microfinance company reached IPO
“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 unpredicta…”
Aggarwal: Operators transitioning to VC struggle with delayed gratification
“Because a lot of folks who come from operating background are very relevant in that they are able to help the company post investment. But they may also have a shorter time horizon in which they want to see the impact. So to be able to do something without any…”
Aggarwal: Early-Stage and Growth-Stage VC Require Distinct Fund Vehicles
“Yes, because I think the DNA of an early stage firm is very different from a DNA of a growth stage firm. One is about making lots of bets, other is about doing concentrated bets. So I think, to me, they look like two very different businesses, and it's best to…”
Helion Led Azure Power Seed Round Prior to Its NYSE Listing
“We actually stepped up to lead the seed round in Azure Power, and over the, Journey of that investment, we attracted capital from investors like IFC and Foundation Capital and a bunch of DFIs. And eventually you know, over an eight, nine period journey with th…”
Helion's early legal outsourcing bet grew at 100% CAGR for six years
“So we invested very early on in a legal services company, LPOs as they were called back then, and again this company was sitting in Gurgaon delivering work around litigation in the US, and it was growing at, you know, a compounded average growth rate of a hund…”
Helion's first bet on mobile transaction startup JiGrahak failed on timing
“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 …”
How MakeMyTrip succeeded in 2006 by leveraging omnichannel distribution
“And, ah, this, you know, almost at the same time, we backed a company called Make My Trip, which was, ah, you know, I think way ahead of competition even back then. Ah, thankfully, it has retained that, ah, lead And it was making itself widely available throug…”
Aggarwal: Helion Ventures has stopped making fresh startup investments
“In Helion, we have not done fresh investing because we have a very large portfolio.”
Aggarwal: Helion succeeded in MakeMyTrip and BigBasket, struggled in high-friction physical businesses
“I think we've had a share of good investments like Make My Trip, Red Bus, Big Basket, Topper. We've had very good investments in outsourcing. We haven't done as well in some physical businesses where there's lot more friction.”
Aggarwal: Fundamentum has focused investments on distribution over D2C brands
“Direct to consumer brands we haven't yet made too many investments because the question is that is it better to invest in distribution or is it better to invest in brand? So far we have invested more in distribution.”
Aggarwal: Helion Struggled to Profit in Real Estate Due to Cyclicity
“We actually haven't had very good experience with real estate. We've had two, three bets in that area. And that industry, I guess, because of lack of transparency very high degree of cyclicity has been a hard one for us to make money off.”