India's Unitary Helion rebrands as Arkam, reaches first close

The fund has an overall target of INR7.25 billion. Chandra (pictured) launched Unitary Helion in 2017 following his departure from Helion Venture Partners. The goal was to back financial technology start-ups. Bala Srivastava, formerly a partner at Kalaari Capital and another Helion Venture alumnus, joined Chandra. He will also be part of Arkam.

LPs in the new fund include several start-up founders and Capria, a US-headquartered impact investment firm. Vikas Choudhry, the president of Jio Telecom, former Microsoft India CEO Ravi Venkatesan and Asian Microbiome Library co-founder Jeremy Lin are among the firm's advisors.

In a LinkedIn post, Chandra outlined that the new entity would continue to invest in start-ups operating in the mobility, financial services, food and healthcare sectors. He told The Economic Times that Arkam has already invested in Krazybee, an online lending firm targeting students, and Jumbotail, a B2B marketplace for fast-moving consumer goods and groceries.

“The COVID-19 crisis has significantly accelerated the digitization momentum in our core sectors," Chandra wrote in the post. "Regulatory changes that allow cross-state selling of agricultural produce, digital onboarding and streamlining of financial transactions, and digital health processes such as video consultation at hospitals are just some examples of a tidal wave of change that is likely to reshape these core sectors."

Unitary Helion has made 12 investments but has yet to achieve an exit.

Chandra’s investment career began in 1996 as the first hire in Walden International’s India office. From 2000, he spent three years working for the firm in Silicon Valley. This was followed by a stint as head of M&A at e4e, a Bay Area business process outsourcing company. Before Kalaari, Srinivasa worked at financial research and data analytics firms in India and the US.

Other Helion Venture partners have also gone on to establish new GPs. Co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal established a growth-stage technology firm The Fundamentum Partnership while fellow co-founder Kanwaljit Singh launched Fireside Ventures, which makes early-stage consumer investments.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Technology
• GPs
• Helion Ventures
• Arkam Ventures
• TMT