Nandan Nilekani’s Fundamentum launches a Rs 2,200 crore fund for India’s Series B startups

Fundamentum Partnership, the growth-stage investment firm co-founded by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and veteran entrepreneur-investor Sanjeev Aggarwal, has launched its third fund with a target corpus of Rs 2,200 crore, including a Rs 400 crore greenshoe option. Nilekani will anchor the fund as a limited partner, in what Fundamentum said marks his largest commitment to any venture capital firm.

“India’s Series B moment is now,” Mayank Kachhwaha, general partner at Fundamentum, told TOI, adding that the expansion of the early-stage funding ecosystem has created a much larger pipeline of companies ready for growth capital. Fundamentum was founded in 2017 to specifically address a gap in India’s funding landscape, where seed and Series A capital had become widely available but few investors specialised in growth-stage financing.

Fund III will continue the firm’s strategy of writing initial cheques of Rs 100 crore to Rs 150 crore and typically seeking 10-15% ownership in portfolio companies, with plans for eight to 10 investments. Around 60% of the corpus will go toward initial investments, with the remaining 40% reserved for follow-on rounds, and a first close expected within three to six months.

The new fund will focus on consumer technology, fintech, and AI-native or AI-enabled businesses, with Kachhwaha expecting roughly 80% of Fund III to go toward consumer and fintech startups and the rest toward AI-native companies and AI-led services. Fundamentum’s existing portfolio includes Spinny, PharmEasy, Kuku, AppsForBharat, ApnaMart, FlexiLoans, Stable Money, TransBnk, Olyv and ProcMart, with Fund II delivering a gross internal rate of return of 26% and portfolio companies recording 123% growth over the past year.

Fund III also marks a leadership transition at the firm. While Nilekani continues as anchor LP and Aggarwal remains a general partner, the fund will be led jointly by Aggarwal, Prateek Jain, Kachhwaha and Sanjay Chaturvedi as general partners, reflecting what Kachhwaha described as a deliberate effort to build Fundamentum into a long-term investment institution with younger leaders gradually taking on responsibility.