India Quotient Closes Fund V At $129 Mn To Back Early Stage Startups

Early-stage focussed venture capital (VC) firm India Quotient has closed its fifth fund (Fund V) with an investment of $129 Mn (about INR 1,132 Cr), over double the size of its $64 Mn Fund IV.

With the fund, India Quotient aims to back pre-seed, seed stage Indian startups along with investing in idea stage startups.

“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 VC firm said in a post on its social media handles.

As part of Fund V, India Quotient said it will support founders at every stage without pressuring them to raise funding too quickly, give up excessive equity, or exit their startups prematurely.

The firm, which is an early investor in notable startups like ShareChat, Sugar Cosmetics, Lendingkart, Kuku FM, also announced the expansion of its leadership team. In this, vice president Sahil Makkar and ex-Upside AI cofounder Kanika Agarrwal have been appointed as new partners at the VC firm.

Inc42 has reached out to India Quotient to get more details on its targeted number of investments from the fund, investors that partook in Fund V, among others. The story will be updated based on their response.

Founded in 2012 by Anand Lunia and Madhukar Sinha, India Quotient is a sector-agnostic VC firm, actively investing in early stage startups across sectors like SaaS, B2B marketplaces, finTech, consumer services, social media platforms, among others.

Its ticket size per investment ranges between INR 1- 15 Cr ($120K-$1.9 Mn). The VC firm has launched four funds so far, having invested in more than 100 startups over the last decade.

The launch of the new fund comes at a time when early-stage startup funding in India has experienced a decline in 2025 compared to the previous year. In the first half of 2025, early-stage startup funding fell 31% YoY to $406 Mn while the third quarter saw a 6% YoY decline in early stage funding to a mere $200 Mn.

However, the early stage startup funding situation is expected to change in the near future as we are witnessing an increasing investor propensity to back early-stage Indian startups. Of the total $9 Bn worth startup funds launched in the first nine months of 2025, nearly 60% funds are targeting investments at early stages. This emphasis on early stage deals mirrored in the investor sentiment.

Further, as per Inc42’s half-yearly investor sentiment survey, angel, pre-seed, and seed stage startups are expected to capture 58% of investments in 2026.

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