Investment Firm Venture Catalysts Raises INR 150 Cr

Mumbai-based investment firm Venture Catalysts has secured INR 150 Cr (about $18 Mn) in a mix of primary and secondary transactions.

Without giving the size of the primary and secondary transactions, the firm said that ace investor Ashish Kacholia and group, Authum Investments, angel investor Karthik Sundar Iyer, Param Capital founder Mukul Agarwal, Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai, Shahrukh Khan Family Office, among others, were the new investors who participated in the round.

Venture Catalysts plans to deploy the capital for leadership expansion, new fund launches, technology upgrades, including AI‑enabled diligence and LP reporting, and geographic expansion across key startup hubs, it said in a statement.

The primary transaction came in at a valuation of $200 Mn, ET reported citing Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, cofounder and MD of Venture Catalysts.

Founded in 2015 by Sharma, Anil Jain, Anuj Golecha and Gaurav Jain, Venture Catalysts started as an angel network. Currently, it has a syndication business which deploys capital through angel fund AIFs and a VC arm which forms Category II AIFs with managers and institutional anchors.

Global investors including YCombinator, Greenoaks, Axis Capital, Alpha Capital, Rocketship and FJ Labs have co-invested with Venture Catalysts.

The firm claims to have deployed over $200 Mn via syndication from UHNIs, HNIs and family offices to date. It counts 100Unicorns, Beams Fintech Fund, Elev8 Venture Partners and Spyre PropTech Venture Fund in its AIF lineup.

The firm has a ticket size of $200K to $2 Mn for its investments. It has invested in the likes of Evenflow, Garuda Aerospace, OneStack, among others, in 2025.

Overall, Venture Catalysts has assets under management of over $500 Mn and has backed over 400+ startups, including Renee Cosmetics, InsuranceDekho, BharatPe, among others.

The funding comes at a time when the country’s startup ecosystem continues to see rapid growth. According to the DPIIT, the country is home to over 1.8 Lakh startups. 

These startups are being powered by early stage investors, who are taking bets on entrepreneurs leveraging technology to solve problems and create new categories. A number of new funds have been launched by VCs like Elevation Capital, Inflection Point, Kettleborough VC, Campus Fund, BAT VC over the past few months to back startups.

Based on Inc42’s ‘Indian Tech Startup Funding Report, Q1 2025’, a total of 23 funds worth over $3.2 Bn were launched in the March quarter to back Indian startups, mostly focussed on sectors like fintech, consumer services, and enterprise grade AI solutions.