Rahul Chandra launches $100-mn early-stage fund

The company will invest in financial technology and value chain innovation in core sectors

Rahul Chandra, co-head at venture capital firm Helion Venture Partners, is launching an early-stage fund, Unitary Helion, that plans to raise $100 million (almost Rs 650 crore) from investors. 

Chandra is managing director at Helion, a $600-mn venture capital (VC) fund that has seen several of its partners launching their own fund. Starting with Kanwaljeet Singh (Fireside Ventures) and Ritesh Banglani, Alok Goyal and Rahul Chowdhri (Stellaris Ventures), while Sanjeev Agarwal is believed to be planning a mid-stage fund.

Chandra’s fund, planning a first close by this October, will back credit and payments businesses that enable marketplaces in agriculture and logistics, explained Chandra while briefing about his new fund. 

It will invest in financial technology (fintech), digital marketplaces and value chain innovation in core sectors such as financial services, agriculture, logistics and health care. Unitary will create a portfolio of 18 to 20 companies under a common thesis of technology-based innovation that impacts hundreds of millions of lives. 

Chandra is in talks with local and foreign investors. 

Global institutional investors and family offices are likely to contribute 60 per cent of the fund. Unitary is also in talks with several strategic investors in financial services and with banks for raising the initial corpus. The fund will use data science to gauge and provide feedback on customer engagement with the entities it plans to invest in. This was pioneered by Silicon Valley firm Social Capital. Jonathan Hsu, partner and head of data science at Social Capital will serve as a special advisor and help Chandra in developing in-house data analytic tools for all  focus areas. 

Hsu brings expertise in application of data science and broader growth methodologies to support portfolio companies. Particularly with respect to quantitative understanding of product market fit, user growth and other start-up health metrics. 

The fund will also soon appoint a head for data science. Unitary says it will look for companies whose founders will drive growth through intense product orientation and where data science can play a significant role in promoting growth.

In his 17-year VC career, Chandra has backed a little over 30 early-stage to mid-stage start-ups. Predominantly tech product and services companies, spanning the  consumer, enterprise and mobility segments. These include Seclore, UnitedLex, Shubham, Wooplr, Ezetap, MoEngage, RailYatri, Crownit and Toppr. 

At Helion, Rahul has led investments worth $100 mn in 16 companies since 2006. Prior to this, he was with Walden International between 1997 and 2005. He was part of the team that invested in infotech companies in the US and India such as Mindtree, Sierra Atlantic, Techspan/Headstrong, Ikanos, Matisse Networks and Broadlogic Networks. 

Announcing the launch of his new fund, Chandra said, “At Unitary Helion, the team is focused on entrepreneurs that combine deep domain expertise with innovative technology solutions to unlock massive value.’’ The fund has identified fintech as a significant opportunity. 

Chandra feels areas like alternate lending and digital payments are poised to reshape access to credit and opportunities for consumers and small businesses. Besides fintech, a portion of Unitary’s investments will also go into digital networks and marketplaces that connect sectors like agriculture, logistics and health care. 

There is, he says, a great opportunity to build network-based businesses that provide tech-based transaction capability, reduce value chain inefficiencies and multiply transactions. “There exists room for large scale digitisation of transactions, payments and supply chains,” said Chandra.

Unitary will receive operational, infrastructure and advisory support from Helion Advisors. Sanjeev Aggarwal and Ashish Gupta, senior managing directors at Helion, are on board as advisors to the new fund. All three (including Chandra) will continue to actively manage the current Helion portfolio.