Fundamentum launches Rs 2,200 crore growth fund with Nandan Nilekani as anchor LP

Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani and Helion Ventures founder Sanjeev Aggarwal‘s Fundamentum launched its third growth-stage technology fund with a target corpus of Rs 2,200 crore, including a Rs 400 crore greenshoe option, at a time when capital for scale-up companies remains selective after the post-2021 reset.

Nilekani will be anchoring Fundamentum Fund III with what the firm described as his largest investment in a venture capital firm. The vehicle will be led by Aggarwal, Prateek Jain, Mayank Kachhwaha and Sanjay Chaturvedi as general partners, following the firm’s 2017 and 2022 fund vintages.

Aggarwal said Fundamentum was set up to address a recurring “missing middle” in India’s startup market. “India has a very good startup ecosystem, but the wheels come off when companies try to scale,” he told ET, adding that the firm’s role was to bring both capital and operating support on organisation design, governance, hiring and go-to-market strategies.

Fundamentum Fund III will back companies in consumer technology, fintech and AI-native or AI-enabled businesses. It will typically write first cheques of about $10 million and invest $15 million on average across around 11 companies, with about 40% of the fund reserved for follow-on investments, the partners said.

The launch comes as several large rounds this year have been led by private equity, sovereign and strategic investors, while pure-play domestic growth capital has remained limited.

Fund III also follows a leadership change at the firm after partner Ashish Kumar moved to head Fundamentum Frontier Advisors (F2A), a separate investment platform focused on AI and deeptech. F2A plans to invest Rs 3,000 crore in AI and deeptech startups, while Fundamentum remains focused on its Series B growth-stage investment strategy.