Rural commerce platform Hesa acquires Flinkhub for enhancing super app capabilities

Rural commerce platform Hesa has acquired Flinkhub to enhance its super app and drive product-led growth. It will bring onboard Flinkhub’s Co-Founders Ashish Rajput, Ananth SNC and Jerrin Joy to accelerate their product adoption among India’s next billion users.

“Flinkhub team comes with years of experience in building start-ups from the ground up. They bring a unique combination of user and product understanding and exceptional execution capabilities to drive large-scale adoption,” said Vamsi Udayagiri, Co-Founder and CEO, Hesa.

The team will focus their efforts on enhancing the Hesa super app, a ‘phygital’ marketplace where a rural consumer gets access to all their product and service needs in one place.

“Technology has drastically changed the way we work, earn, spend and live. We’re truly at an inflection point, with a large consumer base coming online for the first time,” says Ananth SNC, who will head Technology at Hesa.

Flinkhub has two products — Flinkhub relationship intelligence, a tool that accurately maps a user’s network, and Papertown, a social networking app for learning. Hesa will use these technologies for product-led acquisition and training of their network of village-level entrepreneurs (VLEs).

Hesa has 40,000 VLEs or Hesaathis who use the Hesa super app to fulfil the needs of users in their village network. Fintech, agri, e-commerce and digital brands integrate their products on the super app and get direct access to rural users.

 “Hesa’s phygital model already drives 18 per cent online commerce in villages, which is higher than many cities. Scaling this across India’s 6.5 lakh villages requires unique strategies, quite different from what works for urban,” says Jerrin Joy, who will drive Growth.

“Building products for the next billion users requires a highly user-centric approach. They have unique ways of interacting with technology. Hesa’s widespread Hesaathi network and consumer intelligence put us at the forefront to build for them,” says Rajput, who will drive Product.

Hesa’s marketplace drives 150 crore monthly gross merchandise value (GMV) and is growing rapidly with 20% month-over-month (MoM) growth. India’s rural market of 70 crore users is largely untapped. Several fintech, agri, FMCG and digital brands are now focusing on serving this market. Hesa is backed by investors like Venture Catalyst and WeFounderCircle.