1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra of Unitary Helion Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Geographically, are we talking about non-major metros now?

Rahul Chandra: We are talking about the next 50 towns and cities. Especially if you travel there, you see the change happening. There is certainly a need to change the mindset of a VC while thinking about customers in these parts.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra of Unitary Helion Ventures (Part 2)

Rahul Chandra: Our thesis, of course, changed in 2011 but it was multi-faceted. We were investing more similarly to a Silicon Valley fund which is consumer enterprise and consumer internet specifically. These are fairly broad terms.

Since you know both sides very well, you know that the depth you can get to in a particular vertical in terms of the disruptions that are happening and the range of companies that you could get to invest in in the Valley is far deeper.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra of Unitary Helion Ventures (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Rahul Chandra was recorded on July 2019.

Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Unitary Helion Ventures, provides an excellent overview of the opportunity around India’s next 400 million consumers.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about yourself and about Unitary Helion. What are you investing in? What is the investment thesis?

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Eyal Shinar, CEO of Fundbox (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Does Apple need to click on your button too on the platform?

Eyal Shinar: No.

Sramana Mitra: Then you don’t need any integration with Apple.

Eyal Shinar: That’s correct. That’s what I was saying earlier. In most scenarios, we don’t need anything from the buyer side. The way to think about it is you need to integrate Fundbox Pay. The integration there is a one-click process.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Eyal Shinar, CEO of Fundbox (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: It’s not a big buyer whose problem you’re solving. You’re solving the small business’ problem of cash flow. A small business working with a large buyer with not very favorable terms puts the small business at the mercy of the buyer.

In this case, just inserting Fundbox or equivalent speeds up the working capital issue for small businesses, and the large buyer has absolutely nothing to lose by introducing that.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Eyal Shinar, CEO of Fundbox (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Why are you not involved in transactions where it’s a large company buying from a small company?

Eyal Shinar: Because of the point you just raised. Interestingly enough, some larger companies, not as big as Apple, reach out to Fundbox as a seller. We already have agreements in place, but it’s not public yet. They’re asking us to be the provider of terms of their business buyers.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Eyal Shinar, CEO of Fundbox (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What percentage of sellers are working with you in this mode? What is the penetration of this kind of technology in the B2B sellers’ world? What percentage of the sellers in the world are working with Fundbox or competitors today?

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Eyal Shinar, CEO of Fundbox (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Can you walk me through a use case? Let’s say a small business applies to Fundbox for financing. Do you call it financing or do you call it something else?

Eyal Shinar: There are a few gateways to the product. It depends on what you’re solving. I would divide it into two buckets. One bucket would be the B2B sellers or the vendors. They use Fundbox Pay.