Meet Harsha Bhogle, cricket commentator who doubles up as startup investor

His first bet as an investor on startup Chqbook was made after consulting BigBasket cofounder V S Sudhakar; his second was on fantasy sports platform Fantasy Akhada

With the Indian Premier League running, cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle is a busy man. But that doesn’t stop him from wearing the hat of an investor in the startup ecosystem.

Having several batchmates from IIM Ahmedabad such as BigBasket cofounder VS Sudhakar and Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar who have had mega achievements in the startup ecosystem, Bhogle has always been hearing stories of cricket on one side and the wonders of the startup ecosystem on the other side.

In fact, his first bet as an investor was on startup Chqbook after consulting Sudhakar. “Like we do in old-fashioned matrimonial arrangements, I took advice from him on this investment,” says Bhogle. 

Founded in 2017 by Vipul Sharma, Rajat Kumar, Sachin Arora, and Mohit Goel, Chqbook’s mission is to address challenges of small businesses by building a first-of-its-kind neobank for small business owners in India. It also aims to empower them through specialised lines of business that include banking, lending, khata, insurance, and rewards to realise their financial goals.

“Before investing in Chqbook, I looked at a couple of things such as the domain they were getting into and where they had relevant experience. I liked the fact that they were looking bottom-up and not at fancy valuations. I have never understood the business of burning money and growing as at some point you need real growth,” says Bhogle, who invested in the company in 2018.

From 100,000 customers at the beginning of FY21, Chqbook currently has over 1 million small business owners on its app. It has seen 9X growth in applications cumulatively across all its business lines, resulting in one application received every 10 seconds since April last year. One of the reasons for the escalation in growth is that Chqbook launched its ‘financial control center’ mobile app in September 2020  to empower India’s 60 million small business owners. The rapid adoption of the Chqbook app signals the growing trend among small business owners turning towards new technologies to grow their businesses as they navigate the new normal. The Gurugram based startup had raised $5 million in Series A funding to expand its product portfolio, scale-up distribution across multiple cities, and strengthen its proprietary AI-powered technology platform.

Another bet that Bhogle has made is on fantasy sports platform Fantasy Akhada. The startup recently raised Rs 5 crore equity funding through Prime Securities Limited, an investment banking boutique that provides diversified investment banking and corporate advisory services in India. This was a genre he knew very well so Bhogle did not have to do much due diligence while investing in fantasy Akhada. 

Even though Bhogle is an investor in these startups and has followed their growth story, he doesn’t interfere in the working of these companies. “I can’t tell Rohit Sharma (Indian cricketer) how he’s batting these days. These people are the best judges of their business,” he says.

While Bhogle has made two investor bets so far, he believes it is not his primary calling and he is not tempted to jump and invest more as of now. 

When asked if we will see Bhogle running his own startup one day, he is a one-man startup, he says. 

“I ventured into an area (cricket commentary) where not many people did,” he smiles.