Rural commerce platform Hesa acquires Flinkhub

Rural commerce platform Hesa has acquired Bengaluru-based Flinkhub, a platform for creators to build social learning experiences, for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition will help Hesa to strengthen its super app strategy and drive product-led growth. Following the deal, Flinkhub’s co-founders Ashish Rajput, Ananth SNC and Jerrin Joy will join Hesa.

Hesa will leverage Flinkhub’s two products Relatioship Intelligence and Papertown to train a network of village-level entrepreneurs to solve the challenge of sourcing and building community.

Backed by Venture Catalyst and WeFounderCircle, Hesa’s B2B marketplace weeds out access issues and enables bulk buying to merchants in rural areas. It claims to have a network of 30,000 village entrepreneurs and serve over 700,000 customers in the past year. Large fintech, agri, e-commerce and digital brands can access the platform’s network by integrating their product line.

Hesa aspires to serve over 60,000 merchants across 30,000 villages by the end of 2022. Besides product-based e-commerce, it plans to enable bill payments, account opening, mobile recharge, and bus ticket booking among others.