The year 2022 has been an amazing year for venture capital funding value in India. As per GlobalData India had a massive 39 percent year-on-year growth in venture capital funding deal volume to 976 deals during the first 2 quarters of 2022.

Even after all the ups & downs these trends pushed & encouraged startup ecosystems. The VC firms in India will play a major role in the growth of the Indian startup ecosystem.

So without taking much time let’s discuss best venture capital firms that are going to scare the next level of Indian startups & help them scale in the early stage & seed round investments.

What is Venture Capital?

Venture capital (VC) is a kind of private equity with a type of financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential. Venture capital generally comes from well-off investors, investment banks, and other financial institutions.

Top Venture Capital Firms in India 2022-23

• Sequoia Capital
• Accel
• Blume Ventures
• Elevation Capital
• Tiger Global Management
• Kalaari Capital
• Matrix Partners
• Nexus Venture Partners
• Indian Angel Network
• Omidyar Network India
• Venture Highway
• Chiratae Ventures
• Omnivore Partners
• Axilor Ventures
• Trifecta Capital Advisors. 
• Ankur Capital Fund
• Inventus Capital Partners 
• Fidelity Growth Partners 
• Naspers
• Jungle Ventures 
• Qualcomm Ventures

Sequoia Capital India

Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm established in 1972. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. They were early investors in big companies like Apple, Google, Dropbox, and WhatsApp.

Sequoia Capital is blooming specifically in, early, mid, and late, expansion, investments in startup seed, public, and growth-stage companies. In 2006, they formed a subsidiary, Sequoia Capital India which specializes in investment in startups with high growth potential. Some of their notable investments in India include Justdial, Byju’s, Freecharge, Practo, and CarDekho.

Sequoia Capital India has raised a total of $3B across 8 funds to date. The latest fundraising of $195M was announced on March 25, 2021. Its focused industries are Consumer, Energy, Financial, Healthcare, Outsourcing, and Technology.

Accel – Venture Capital Firms In India

Accel is one of the leading firms in India. Its headquarters are in Bengaluru, India, and known as one of the oldest ventures in India. It was founded in 1983 in Palo Alto, California, and has a global presence in big cities like Palo Alto, London, New York, China, and India.

It funded many big companies right from the beginning like Flipkart, BabyOye, Freshdesk, Book My Show, Zansaar, Probe, Myntra, CommonFloor, etc. It empowers a global community of entrepreneurs who have what it takes to build a world-class and prospering business. The investment of Accel Partners ranges from $500K to $50 Million.

Blume Ventures – Venture Capital Firm In India

Founded in 2010, Blume Venture now has more than $500M in capital and more than 175 backed startups. They are conventionally the first institutional investors in their portfolio companies and invest for about 8-10 years all around the world.

Their domain of Investment is Mobile Applications, Internet & Software sectors, research and development, and Telecommunication Equipment. It funds companies like Carbon Clean Solutions, EKI Communications, Audio Compass, Exotel, and Printo.

It provides seed funding investments between $0.05 Mn – $0.3 Mn. And it also provides follow-on investments to portfolio companies ranging from $.5Mn to $1.5Mn. They conduct regular learning events and platforms at the founder and CXO levels.

Elevation Capital – Venture Capital Firms In India

Elevation Capital is a venture founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Gurugram, India. The firm generally prefers to invest in consumer brands, enterprise, consumer technology, cryptocurrency, financial services, software as a service, business-to-business (B2B), and logistics sectors.

It invested in Capital Float, IndustryBuying, Swiggy, Aye Finance, Rivigo, etc. Ravi Adusumalli is the founder of Elevation Capital India. It is a stage agnostic, private equity with 101 deals.

Tiger Global Management – Venture Capital Firms In India

Founded and Launched in 2001, this public equity business applies a fundamentally oriented approach. They seek to invest in high-quality companies and are led by excellent management teams. It also invested in hundreds of companies across more than 30 countries since 2003. Finance & Technology and Internet software are its domain of investment.

Tiger Global Management is one of the most active institutional investors in India along with their investment capacity, investment structure, investment industries, and some of their most notable portfolio startups and ventures.

Its startup investment base is Urban Company, OPEN, Ninjacart, Flipcart, Razorpay, etc. It is a late stage, Post IPO venture. The core focus area is to partner with dynamic businessmen & entrepreneurs and market-leading growth companies.

Kalaari Capital – Venture Capital Firms In India

Kalaari Capital was founded by Vani Kola in the year 2011. It is an early-stage venture headquartered in Banglore and is also known as Indo-US Venture Partners and NEA Indo-US Venture Partners. They work with a vision of enabling entrepreneurship in the digital economy and a mission to create deep long-term relationships with the founders of some reputed startups.

Many profound startups invested in Kalaari Capital such as Urban Ladder, Myntra, ScoopWhoop, Instamojo, Mettl, etc. Internet, e-commerce, and curated web are some of its main domains of investment. To date, Kalaari Capital has raised $479M across three funds, the most recent of which is the Fourth India-Dedicated Fund.

Matrix Partners -Venture Capital Firm In India

It is based in Mumbai and was founded in 1977. The capital turnover is INR 3000 Cr. and they invested in many sectors of India. The concerned Industries are  Internet, eCommerce, Consumer internet, Travel, Internet, Consumer Internet, Travel, etc. It’s an early-stage venture that invested INR 1 Cr. to 75 Cr. Some of the top startups like Housejoy, FITJEE, Ola, mSwipe, WeAreHolidays, Quikr India, LimeTray, Hearing Plus, and Limeroad invested in Matrix Partners. Its main domain of investment is Entertainment and Media, Consumer Internet, SaaS, eCommerce, etc. Matrix Partners currently invest in 65+ IPOs and has more than 110+ profitable acquisitions and 100+ investments. 

Nexus Venture Partners -Venture Capital Firm In India

A well-known name among venture capital firms is Nexus Venture Partners. It was established in 2006 and was a forerunner of tech-driven firms in India. It has a solid reputation among entrepreneurs in their early stages in the USA and India. It invests in early-stage growth firms in the range of $0.5 million to $10 million.

Their long-term goal is to support business owners as they pursue their entrepreneurial endeavors. They pledge to do everything in their power to help their partners develop. Their Domain of Investment is data security, Biodata analytics, agribusiness, consumer and business services, and mobile infrastructure. Many prosperous startups, including Snapdeal, PubMatic, Olx, and many others, were financed by them.

Indian angel network – Venture Capital Firms In India

The Indian Angel Network was founded in New Delhi in April 2006. Padmaja Ruparel, Raman Roy, and Sourabh Shrivastav are its founders. In 2017, the group had 450 members from 11 countries. They primarily invest in early-stage startups with the potential to add significant value to society. Indian angel network is not only the name of an investment firm but also a high-handed mentor to many businesses.

They invest in a wide range of industries, including agriculture, education, hospitality, healthcare, gaming, internet, social impact, mobile, semiconductor, and manufacturing. They invest in startups with high entry barriers and differentiated value proportions. Their primary portfolios include wow momos, wiwingo, fareye, college search, mobilewalla, and others.

Omidyar network India

Omidyar Network India makes equity investments in early-stage startups and provides funding to numerous non-profit organizations that are constantly working to leverage hundreds of millions of Indians in the low-income bracket. Omidyar Network India is a subsidiary of the Omidyar Group, a diverse conglomerate led by Pam and Pierre eBay.

They primarily fund startups in fintech, edtech, and digital technology. They are dedicated to fostering an environment of accountability, boldness, diversity, empathy, and trust. Their key portfolio companies include daily hunt, Healthkart, Quikr, kutuki, doubtnut, white hat education technology, pratilipi, ZestMoney, and a slew of other prominent industry leaders.

They acknowledge that determining impact is an art and a science. They seek to be rigorous in their approach while avoiding the pitfalls of spurious precision. While they try to learn from the various subtleties of the work done by their investees, they also record important data in a unified framework. Though they pursue knowledge, their goal is simplicity.

Venture Highway

Venture highway was founded in the year 2015 by Samir Sood who worked with google in past. It is an early-stage venture capital (VC) firm.

It is a founder-focused seed fund that works with the next generation of Indian technology entrepreneurs. It backed the Reseller network, Meesho, and the vernacular social network Sharechat which is one of the top 30 soonicorns in India. Venture highway is a famous name in media groups like the Times of India, and Business standard due to its sky-touching achievements in such a short span of time. Their investment partners are Cars24, Bitclass, Airmeet, and many tech-driven industries.

Chiratae Ventures

It is a technology venture capital firm and the main focus is the growth stage startups in the Indian market. It is founded by Sudhir Sethi, TCM Sundaram who founded Chiratee Ventures in 2006 in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It makes the equity in early-stage ventures and later-stage ventures.

The main targets of CHiratae Ventures are Consumer Media & Technology, FinTech, Health Tech, Deep Tech, and Software/SaaS. The top Domain of Investments is Mobile-software products, Technology based services, and engineering-medical devices. Leadership, Agility, Rish Taker, Innovative, Strength, Stable, Nurtherer of Ecosystem, etc are the qualities of its members. 

Omnivore Partners – Venture Capital Firms In India

Obsessed with organic agritech and deeply embedded in the global Agri ecosystem, Omnivore Partners is an early-stage seed venture founded by Mark Kahn in 2011. Its investment themes include farmer platforms & Fintech, B2B Agri marketplaces, Farm to Consumer Brands, Precision Agriculture, Post harvest technology, and Agri-food lif-sciences. 

The domain of investment is Technologies for food and agriculture. Arohan Food, Skymet, and eximeds are some of the top ventures invested in Omnivore Partners.

Axilor Ventures || Venture Capital Firms In India

With an industry-leading follow-on rate of 75%+ and one of the largest portfolios of Series A+ companies for any first fund in India, Axilor Ventures is a community of more than 400 founders. They invest in 8-12 companies every year and $500K to $750K in every startup through their seed fund. Its main domain of investments is in consumer internet, artificial intelligence, fintech & industrial IoT, and enterprise SaaS & healthcare. Many top startups also invested like QuickShift, Womaniya, Petoo, Lyfyty, MedFin, EnCash, etc. 

Trifecta Capital Advisors. 

Trifecta Capital Advisors is an INR 300 Cr. venture debt fund that is expected to be closed in the next three to six months. Founded by Rahul Khanna and Nilesh Kothari, It is also technically India’s first venture debt fund which is founded in 2014 in Gurugram, India.

The domain of investments is Technology & Consumer, Healthcare domain. The startups which invested in Trifecta Capital Advisors are BharatPe, BlackBuch, Box8, and Cure.fit, Country delight, GoQuii, Bizongo, etc. The fund will invest between INR 5-15 Cr. for 16-18% borrowing cost. 

Ankur Capital Fund

Ankur Capital fund is an early-stage venture that makes an investment in new technology and startups that have the courage to have an exceptional impact on health, agriculture, and other sectors. They also invest in Digital technology-led companies and Deep science technology-led companies. The top domains of investment are Agri tech & food, skill development and education among others, and healthcare tech. Cropin, and Tessol are some of the startups funded by Ankur Capital fund. Its headquarters are in Mumbai, Maharashtra. 

Inventus Capital Partners 

Inventus Capital Partners were the first investors in scores of successful startups, including 7 Unicorns, two of which had multi-Unicorn IPOs in 2021. They provide as much as $3 million in Seed capital to finance the runway and resources required to attract a meaningful Series A at a rapid scale. Samir Kumar and Kanwal Rekhi founded this venture in the year 1993.

The concerned industries are Consumers, Hotels, Restaurants and Leisure, Media, Internet, Catalog Retail, Healthcare, Information Technology, Hardware, and Equipment, Telecommunications, etc. Many top startups invested in Inventus Capital Partners like Farfaria, Policy Bazaar.com, Insta Health Solution, Cbazaar, etc. 

Fidelity Growth Partners – Venture Capital Firms In India

Founded by Abhinav Sinha and Harsh Jhaveri, Fidelity Growth Partners is a financial firm that puts people and relationships first. It is the private equity arm of Fidelity International Limited and also one of the largest financial firms in the world.

Generally, FGPI invests between $10 Mn and $50 Mn for a minority stake in the company. The concerned Industries are Healthcare and Life Sciences, Technology, Consumer, and Manufacturing. It funds the startups like Netmagic and Yebhi.

Naspers

Naspers is one of the largest technology investors in the world and invests in long-term potential growth. The company has a level 1 American Depository Receipt (ADR) program, which trades on an over-the-counter (OTC) basis in the United States of America. Its concerned industries are Ecommerce, Print Media, and Pay Television. It was incorporated in 1915 as a public limited liability company and its most significant operations are located in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa, China, Central, and Eastern Europe, India, Brazil, Russia, Thailand, and the Netherlands. 

Jungle Ventures – Venture Capital Firms In India

It is a Singapore-based, entrepreneur-backed venture firm that funds and helps startups scale mainly across Asia Pacific. It invests in global startups that are solving problems relevant to Asia Pacific markets. It has more than 50 founders in 8 counties.

It has made more than 35 investments with a combined portfolio value of more than 12.5Bn and more than 1Bn Assets under Management. Some concerned industries are Ecommerce, Digital Media, Saas, Fintech, Big Data, Analytics, and Enterprise, and the startups funded by popular startups like Zipdial, Ekstop, Pokkt, and Milaap.

Qualcomm Ventures

Qualcomm Ventures is building technology for the next generation of enterprise, cloud, edge computing, and security. Founded in the year 2000, Qualcomm Ventures is a corporate venture capital fund with over 150 active portfolio companies and more than 20 exits over a billion dollars, including 99 Taxis, Cruise Automation, Fitbit, Invensense, NQ Mobile, Waze, and more. Appsdaily, Capillary, Deck, Portea, and Housing are the startups funded by Qualcomm Ventures.

Its main industries are Business Software, Consumer Software, Cloud/Enterprise, Health Care, Infrastructure, Semi/Components, and Hardware.