Early-stage investment firm India Quotient closed its fifth fund at $129 million in October 2025, its largest corpus to date for backing young Indian startups.
The fund is more than 60% bigger than its previous vehicle, which raised $80 million in 2021. The fifth fund stands out for another reason: the firm has now shifted almost its entire limited partner base to global investors, including funds of funds and endowments. Among institutional LPs, only one from the previous vehicle returned. Despite the sizeable increase in corpus, the number of LPs in Fund V is down by about 75% compared with the last vehicle.
This is a key change for the 14-year-old firm, which began with a smaller capital pool raised from domestic investors in 2013. The move towards overseas LPs was intentional. India Quotient co-founder Anand Lunia told The Arc in an interview that the firm could have closed Fund V in 2024 had it opted to seek capital from Indian family offices. Instead, it chose to build a more stable, long-term institutional base.
Lunia was an entrepreneur during the dot-com era, co-founding and selling the edtech venture Brainvisa with Supam Maheshwari, who is now the CEO of FirstCry. After a stint at Seedfund, he teamed up with Madhukar Sinha to launch India Quotient. Sinha earlier worked at impact-focused investor Aavishkaar. Both studied at IIM Lucknow.
India Quotient's first fund was backed by Ronnie Screwvala, Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma and MakeMyTrip's Deep Kalra, among others. It has returned 7X on its Rs 26-crore corpus. Over the years, a number of its portfolio companies have delivered strong outcomes. ShareChat, for example, has generated about Rs 190 crore in partial exits for the firm.
India Quotient has also built a presence in the content and social-media space with bets such as Kuku FM, FRND, Seekho and SpeakX. The team has expanded as well. Gagan Goyal, the founder of edtech Think Labs, joined the firm as a partner in 2017. With the new fund, India Quotient has also elevated Kanika Agarrwal and Sahil Makkar to the partner level last year. Agarrwal co-founded Upside AI and is a former Mayfield executive. Makkar previously worked at Trifecta Capital and Goldman Sachs. In this interview, Lunia speaks about how the transition to global LPs was executed, the gaps he sees in the seed-stage market and more.
This is a key change for the 14-year-old firm, which began with a smaller capital pool raised from domestic investors in 2013. The move towards overseas LPs was intentional. India Quotient co-founder Anand Lunia told The Arc in an interview that the firm could have closed Fund V in 2024 had it opted to seek capital from Indian family offices. Instead, it chose to build a more stable, long-term institutional base.
Lunia was an entrepreneur during the dot-com era, co-founding and selling the edtech venture Brainvisa with Supam Maheshwari, who is now the CEO of FirstCry. After a stint at Seedfund, he teamed up with Madhukar Sinha to launch India Quotient. Sinha earlier worked at impact-focused investor Aavishkaar. Both studied at IIM Lucknow.
India Quotient's first fund was backed by Ronnie Screwvala, Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma and MakeMyTrip's Deep Kalra, among others. It has returned 7X on its Rs 26-crore corpus. Over the years, a number of its portfolio companies have delivered strong outcomes. ShareChat, for example, has generated about Rs 190 crore in partial exits for the firm.
India Quotient has also built a presence in the content and social-media space with bets such as Kuku FM, FRND, Seekho and SpeakX. The team has expanded as well. Gagan Goyal, the founder of edtech Think Labs, joined the firm as a partner in 2017. With the new fund, India Quotient has also elevated Kanika Agarrwal and Sahil Makkar to the partner level last year. Agarrwal co-founded Upside AI and is a former Mayfield executive. Makkar previously worked at Trifecta Capital and Goldman Sachs. In this interview, Lunia speaks about how the transition to global LPs was executed, the gaps he sees in the seed-stage market and more.