Japan’s Unleash Capital Partners closes Rs 300 crore maiden fund to back Indian fintech startups

Japan-based venture capital firm Unleash Capital Partners has closed its maiden fund at Rs 300 crore, aiming to back early-stage Indian fintech and financial services startups.

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The sector-focused fund, co-managed with Tokyo-headquartered Gojo & Company, Inc., has already deployed capital into seven startups and plans to build a portfolio of 12-15 startups over the next 12-18 months.

The vehicle was oversubscribed by around 10% against its $30 million target, with commitments from about 35 Japan-based limited partners (LPs), including institutions and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Around 90% of the capital came from institutional investors. The fund will write cheques ranging from Rs 5 crore to Rs 18 crore, reserving about 30-40% of the corpus for follow-on rounds.

Founder and Managing Partner Natsuki Sugai said the initiative is designed to bridge Japanese investors with India’s fast-growing fintech ecosystem, where governance concerns and market unfamiliarity have often deterred direct participation.

“Our goal is to become the trusted bridge between Japanese capital and credible Indian startups,” he said.

Unleash Capital is focusing on startups directly offering financial services to underserved users as well as those building enabling infrastructure. Segments of interest include lending, fintech infrastructure such as compliance and data platforms, embedded finance across agriculture and mobility, payments, and insurance. Companies already backed include:

• Pelocal, an AI-led payments orchestration platform integrating with WhatsApp and other messaging apps,

• Zype, a digital lending platform, and

• Neurofin AI, which develops enterprise solutions for the BFSI sector.

Sugai highlighted three factors shaping the fund’s strategy: India’s local presence, attractive entry points after the recent market correction in startup valuations, and the scale of financial inclusion needs in a 1.4 billion-strong economy. He added that fintech infrastructure is particularly promising as Indian banks and incumbents adopt new technologies to improve efficiency.

The firm is positioning itself as a specialist investor with three differentiators: deep domain expertise in financial services, equal emphasis on social impact and financial returns, and the ability to connect portfolio companies with Japanese networks for equity, debt, partnerships, and potential M&A.

Unleash has set realistic return expectations, with best-case targets of five to six times distributed-to-paid-in capital. “There’s no magic—just clarity on strategy and execution,” Sugai said.