Why Sachin Bansal prefers to play it safe with debt funding

BENGALURU: When Vivekananda Hallekere decided to raise debt funding for his two-wheeler rental startup Bounce, he was sure about what he wanted out of the transaction—the debt provider had to understand what it took to build a business from scratch.

“I wanted someone who would understand a business from a founder’s point of view, which is important for a startup,” said Hallekere, chief executive and co-founder of the five-year-old Bounce, who pivoted from a luxury bike rental platform to the current dockless scooter-sharing solution to ease urban congestion.

He had spoken to a few interested investors and finally picked BAC Acquisitions Pvt. Ltd, a small investment firm founded in December 2018. Again, there was one main reason driving his decision—BAC’s founder Sachin Bansal, who had co-founded the country’s largest homegrown e-commerce company Flipkart.