Early-stage VC firm India Quotient raises $129 million for fifth fund; expands leadership team

Early-stage venture capital firm India Quotient has raised $129 million or about Rs 1,130 crore for its fifth fund, which is the largest in its 12-year history, to back pre-seed and seed-stage startups across emerging sectors.

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The Bengaluru-based firm, founded by Anand Lunia and Madhukar Sinha in 2013, said the new fund will allow it to continue investing in founders “long before their ideas become sectors,” a philosophy that has shaped its early bets in consumer internet, fintech, agritech, and content startups.

Nearly 80% of the capital for Fund V has come from global limited partners. The firm added that it intends to remain patient capital, avoiding pressure on founders for rapid valuation mark-ups, high dilution, or premature exits.

“We will continue to back founders long before their ideas become “sectors.” This has been true from the early days of India social, brands, content, digital lending, India software, agritech, and many more,” the firm wrote in an X post.

With the latest fund, India Quotient is also expanding its leadership team. Kanika Agarrwal and Sahil Makkar have been promoted as Partners, joining Lunia, Sinha, and Gagan Goyal to strengthen deal sourcing and portfolio support.

The fifth fund represents a significant scale-up from India Quotient’s previous pools. Its fourth fund closed at $80 million, while the third targeted $60 million. The firm began with a modest $6 million corpus in its first fund and has since steadily increased its investment capacity.

India Quotient’s portfolio includes several notable startups such as Sugar Cosmetics, ShareChat, Lendingkart, Kuku FM, Vyapar, and Cityflo.