Prime Ventures ropes in Helion co-founder Ashish Gupta as partner emeritus

Early-stage venture capital firm Prime Venture Partners has roped in the co-founder of Helion Advisors, Ashish Gupta as Partner Emeritus to fortify its investment team and portfolio management.

Gupta will serve as an advisor and mentor for the portfolio companies of Prime Ventures.

“We are excited to announce that Ashish Gupta, veteran investor and entrepreneur, will be joining our fund as Partner Emeritus. We are proud to have him onboard as an advisor and mentor for our portfolio,” said Prime Ventures while announcing his appointment.

Gupta is co-founder of Helion; a 15-year old early to mid-stage India focused venture fund with over $600 million under management. The fund has partnered with over sixty companies, including BigBasket, MakeMyTrip, Toppr, Housing, RailYatri, and Livspace.

While the fund is no more active for the past couple of years, its core team went on to launch independent venture capital firms. Ritesh Banglani, Rahul Chowdhry and Alok Goyal launched Stellaris Venture Partners in 2016, whereas Rahul Chandra floated Akram Ventures (formerly Unitary Helion) and Arkam ventures.

Besides managing Helion, Gupta is a notable entrepreneur and angel investor whose first company, Junglee, was acquired by Amazon back in 1998. Later, he founded Tavant Technologies in 2000. Gupta also serves on the board of several startups, including Ezetap, HyperTrack, Pubmatic, Simplilearn, Naukri, among others.

At Prime Ventures, Gupta will join the founders of the eight-year-old firm, Shripati Acharya, Amit Somani, and Sanjay Swamy, which has over 25 companies in the portfolio across sectors. Its portfolio includes myGate, MoneyTap, KredX, Happay, mfine, Niyo, Traxcn, Perpule and Moneytap.

The Bengaluru-based firm had announced the close of its third fund at Rs 400 crore in March 2018 to back seed-stage startups and make follow-on investments between $3.5 million and $5 million in each.