Saudi Aramco’s VC Arm Building India Team To Back Early-Stage Startups

Saudi Aramco’s venture capital arm is building a team in India and is looking to invest in early-stage startups in the country, a move that will help it capitalise on the Indian startup ecosystem and strengthen the fund’s global presence.

As per Mint’s report, citing sources familiar with the development, Prosperity7 Ventures, a subsidiary of Aramco, is also in discussions to rope in a leader for its India operations.

Inc42 has reached out to Aramco for comments. The story will be updated based on the response.

The firm is planning to invest about $200-300 Mn in more than two dozen early-stage startups in India, the report added.

So far, Prosperity7 Ventures has infused capital into companies operating in the US, the Middle East and China, and now, it wants to expand its global footprint.

Prosperity7 Ventures claims to have invested over $1 Bn in startups worldwide till date, primarily in sectors, including enterprisetech, fintech, deep tech, B2B, B2C, medtech and AI.

The VC firm caters to the likes of Jeeves, Sunrate, Wasabi, SingleStore, Stream Native, Insilico Medicine, SiFive, PragmatIC, Jaka, Callsign, ElroyAir, Vow, and Cart.com among others.

The development comes at a time when the funding dry spell in the Indian startup ecosystem has started to wane.

Despite the challenges posed by the funding slowdown, which started in late 2022, and continued throughout 2023, sectors like fintech, ecommerce, cleantech, deeptech and generative AI exhibited strong resilience.

In February, homegrown startups recorded a 43% month-on-month rise in funding, as per Inc42’s report. 

Between March 23 and March 30, the Indian startup ecosystem saw capital inflows of over $243 Mn, Inc42 reported earlier.

Furthermore, Indian startups are seeing an uptick in direct investments from global investors like Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, StepStone Group, and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which earlier used to bet on the Indian startup ecosystem as limited partners of VC firms, as per Mint. 

India houses over 68,000 startups which have raised $147 Bn funding till date. Of these, 115 startups have already entered the prestigious unicorn club, with the number of soonicorns pegged at 112, according to Inc42’s ‘Unicorns Of Tomorrow Decoding India’s Soonicorn Landscape Report, 2024’.