[Funding alert] Rural tech startup Hesa raises $2M in seed round led by Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns

Rural tech startup Hesa offering unified social, digital, and physical commerce platform on Wednesday announced that it has raised $2 million in a seed round led by Manish Modi of Mastermind Capital at Venture Catalysts (VCats) along with Accelerator Fund, 9Unicorns.

Co-founded by Vamsi Udayagiri and Hema Nandiraju in 2019, Hesa unifies value chains in rural India by enabling local brands and businesses to come together as a community. Complemented by the on-ground network on Village Level Entrepreneurs, Hesa's robust tech-led platform empowers businesses to reach, showcase, demonstrate, convince, and transact with their customer base of more than 850 million across all remote and rural regions in the country.

Further, Hesa's multidimensional value proposition targets a space that lies at the intersection of India's fintech sector and agritech sector, projected to be worth $ 84 billion and $ 24 billion, respectively, by 2025.

Speaking about the new development, Vamsi Udayagiri, Founder and CEO, Hesa, stated,

“The entire fund raising experience has been a phenomenal journey in itself. I have met many amazing people, learnt from every interaction, and grown so much along the way. It is a great validation that Hesa’s model resonates with so many.

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I look forward to every Indian village being powered by our innovative model as we work towards realising our vision to be rural India’s largest integrated marketplace that enables ease of commerce and enables livelihoods at scale. Easy To Pitch, a one stop platform for founders to be investment ready, provided a great support to make Hesa pitch ready for this fundraise.”

Commencing its operations from April 2020, Hesa has achieved gross revenue of $ 4 million to date while witnessing a 15 percent average monthly growth and a 65 percent retention rate.

In February 2021, Hesa was featured in the Top 5 Startups amongst 1000+ startups in India and five other countries at the Innopreneurs Startup Contest. In March 2021, Hesa emerged as one of the top two startups among more than 200 most promising Indian startups at the pan-India fundraising event, Elevate 2021, hosted by IIT Madras. 

Manish Modi, Managing Partner, Mastermind Capital and Lead Investor, VCats, added, "Hesa is reinventing the wheel for rural commerce in India. Their last-mile marketplace coupled with a hybrid Physical-Digital model makes Hesa a company to watch for over the next few years. As they attempt to populate the vast majority of India's villages with their network of 'Hesaathis,' Vamsi and Hema have an impressive long-term vision. They have combined it with a human touch that promises to make Hesa a responsible company, high growth, and impactful."