Devendra Agrawal

GIFT AIF vs. Domestic AIF: A Strategic Guide for Fund Managers For fund managers, choosing between GIFT or Domestic AIF structures is a strategic decision. While both geographically operate from India, they represent fundamentally different regulatory universes, currency frameworks, and operational issues. The following outlines some of the key distinctions—though it is important to note that this is not an exhaustive list, and many more nuances exist. 1. Governing Regulator & Regulations: GIFT AIF: Regulator is IFSCA Domestic AIF: in contrast, is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India 2. Minimum Corpus and investor ticket size: GIFT : Restricted schemes must have a corpus of at least USD 3 million with general minimum ticket size of each investor being USD 1,50,000. Domestic AIF schemes are required to raise at least ₹20 crore with general minimum ticket size of each investor being at least INR 1 crore.   3. Platform Play (Third-Party Fund Management) GIFT: IFSCA explicitly permits Third-Party Fund Management allowing regulated global managers to “plug and play” via an FME Domestic: SEBI regulations do not provide an equivalent platform construct. 4. Currency & Capital. GIFT AIFs: operates in freely convertible foreign currency (primarily USD), allowing for easy pooling of foreign capital. Critically, transactions within GIFT & outside India are not considered as transactions between person resident in India & person resident outside India. Domestic AIF: operates in INR, where inbound foreign capital is subject to FEMA regs. 5. Investor Base: GIFT: GIFT inbound funds are optimized for non-resident/foreign capital seeking exposure of Indian markets . GIFT outbound funds are optimized to provide Indian residents an environment with fewer FEMA restrictions. Domestic: naturally suit India-resident capital and purely India-focused mandates 6. Investment Scope : GIFT AIF: has a Global Mandate, allowing it to invest freely in India, overseas, or a combination of both, offering significant diversification. Domestic: primarily Domestic Mandate, where the majority of the corpus must be invested in India and overseas investments are heavily restricted and capped. 7. Tax Regime: GIFT: A distinct, favorable tax regime with Tax Holiday of 100% tax exemption for 10 consecutive years out of the first 15 years. Concept of Specified Fund with significant tax advantages Domestic: Subject to Standard domestic tax laws 8. Product Scope and Leverage GIFT : No restriction on leverage in GIFT City based funds Domestic: Significant restrictions on Category I & II (shortfall in drawdowns) and Cat. III based on exposure 9. Jurisdiction & FEMA Restrictions. GIFT Funds: operates under a foreign jurisdiction fiction, meaning there are no FEMA restrictions and capital can move freely between GIFT IFSC and the rest of the world. Domestic: fully under domestic jurisdiction and is subject to all FEMA restrictions.

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Thrilled to announce the launch of Ironclad Ventures Fund, our second investment product under Ironclad Asset Management — a ₹200 Cr SEBI-approved fund dedicated to Employee Secondaries. Why does this matter? In India, most venture-backed startups allocate 5–15% of their cap tables to ESOPs, yet liquidity for employees is rare and ad-hoc. For too long, ESOPs have been treated as “paper money,” leading to weaker belief in equity ownership and misaligned incentives. Ironclad Ventures is built to change that. We partner with leading VC-backed startups to offer structured, repeatable liquidity programs, so employees can partially monetize their equity while continuing to hold long-term upside. This liquidity massively increases employees' belief in ESOPs. For companies, this reduces the pressure to constantly increase cash salaries, strengthens retention, and sends a credible signal of wealth creation via ESOPs to future hires. We will take a diversified approach — backing 30–40 high-quality startups across fintech, consumer, SaaS, AI, and digital infrastructure with small ESOP secondary cheques of ₹1–4 Cr for Seed to Series B startups. Our aim is simple: 1. Improve the belief that employees have in ESOPs and unlock some wealth for the people building India’s breakout companies 2. Preserve founder alignment and cap-table integrity 3. Enable Indian HNIs & family offices to access the innovation economy This launch follows the success of our first product, the Ironclad Flexicap PMS, which has grown capital at ~20% since inception in Jan 2025, in a difficult year for capital markets. With Ironclad Ventures, we extend our disciplined investment philosophy into private markets. #Ironclad AMC #VentureCapital #ESOPs #Secondaries #WealthCreation #InnovationEconomy https://lnkd.in/gqWkh_-m

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Former Venture Highway executive Aviral Bhatnagar’s investment venture A Junior VC (ajvc) has closed its debut AIF fund, AJVC Trust, at ₹200 Cr, about six months after its first close. The fund is backed by global institutional investors, top-tier family offices in India, HNIs, and startup founders, though specific names remain undisclosed. Since launch in August 2024, AJVC has invested in 25 startups across SaaS, AI, consumer tech, consumer brands, and B2B. Recently, it invested ₹1.5 Cr for a 9% stake in Mithila Foods, a packaged Bihari foods startup. AJVC targets pre-seed investments and has built a proprietary technology system to evaluate companies. The firm aims to back 90 startups by February 2028, according to Bhatnagar. #aviralBhatnagar #ajvc #earlyStageFunding #AIF #closes #preSeedFunding #startupUpdates #startupro

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We’re excited to share our blog on Premji Invest’s recent investment in Baseten. In it, Vedant Agrawal breaks down the key questions we had to answer—why now and why Baseten—and offers insights into how we track markets, build conviction, and decide when it’s the right time to lean in. High-level takeaways: 👉 Inference optimization as a point solution quickly becomes a race to the bottom. Baseten is different: it delivers a reliable, developer-centered inference system with strong stickiness and pricing power. 1⃣ We waited for the right moment In early 2024, inference infrastructure was crowded and chaotic with dozens of startups chasing narrow optimizations. We held back until lasting market traction emerged. 2⃣ The market matured, and Baseten stood out As the field narrowed, Baseten differentiated itself with enterprise-grade, model-agnostic, cloud-agnostic reliability and deep customer integration. 3⃣ Reliability, workflow, and sticky enterprise traction With 99.99–99.999% uptime across regions, Baseten is built on trust, not just speed. Its developer-first tools embed directly into engineering workflows, creating durable attachment. 4⃣ A level beyond what hyperscalers can offer Beyond compute and storage, Baseten provides redundancy, versioning, autoscaling, and rollback features that matter even more in the wake of recent cloud outages. 5⃣ A strong team and thoughtful business model Founders Tuhin Srivastava, Amir Haghighat, and Philip Howes embody enterprise discipline and product depth. The model scales without owning hardware, and with leaders like Dannie Herzberg driving go-to-market, enterprise adoption looks compelling. Read the full post here: https://lnkd.in/gS92F_BW Premji Invest - US Premji Invest

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🚀 Funding Announcement from HeyEV! We’re excited to announce that HeyEV has raised ~$1.5M in pre-seed round (₹6 Cr in a Pre-Seed equity round and ₹6Cr in Debt), closed in March 2025, to power our mission of enabling Bharat’s green mobility revolution. 🔋 What we do: HeyEV is at the forefront of India’s Green Energy Transition, accelerating the adoption of EVs, solar, energy storage, and charging infrastructure through tech-enabled financing. Using AI/ML, we underwrite both evolving technologies and end-users using alternate data. By bringing together OEMs, NBFCs, and dealers, we’re eliminating the trust gap and enabling financing where traditional players hesitate. 📈 Traction so far: • 50%+ MoM growth (CAGR) • Present in 6 cities and expanding fast • Powering EV ownership for gig workers, fleet operators & micro-entrepreneurs 🌱 Our mission: To accelerate India’s transition to electric mobility—making it accessible, trusted, and inclusive. We combine eco-friendly practices, deep-tech systems, and community engagement to drive a cleaner future. 📍 By FY27, we aim to scale to 25+ cities and deploy over ₹100 Cr in EV financing. 💰 Backed by believers A huge thanks to our investors for trusting this vision: Kubera Capital, AccelVista Arun Jain, IIT, MBA, Anshul Goyal Dimple Tayal, PMP, CSCP Chanakya Puneet Malik Gautam Kapur Vitrag Vasa Himanshu Varshney 🙏 Let’s electrify the path to #NetZero — one green mile at a time ⚡ #EVFinancing #ClimateTech #HeyEV #GreenEnergy #DeepTech #BharatEV #StartupIndia #MobilityForAll #PreSeed

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Fleetx Raises ₹113 Cr in Series C: Powering the Future of Logistics with AI & IoT! I’m thrilled to announce that BEENEXT’s Accelerate Fund has doubled down on our investment in fleetx.io, co-leading their ₹113 Cr ($13.2M) Series C round alongside our partners at IndiaMART InterMESH Limited. This milestone marks another chapter in our unwavering belief in Fleetx’s vision to transform fleet and logistics operations through cutting-edge AI and IoT solutions. Since our initial investment, we’ve watched Fleetx evolve into a powerhouse in the logistics SaaS space. Here’s why we’re so excited about their journey: Remarkable Growth: Fleetx has scaled well since their Series B, crossing ₹100 Cr in ARR—a testament to their strong product-market fit and disciplined execution. With over 2,000 clients, including marquee names like Adani, Unilever, and Vedanta, Fleetx is becoming the go-to platform for digitizing logistics operations in India. Financial Discipline: With remarkable operating revenue growth, reduced EBITDA burn, company is targeting EBITDA breakeven in FY26. This capital-efficient growth sets a strong foundation for their next decade's journey. AI & IoT Innovation: Fleetx’s platform leverages vast logistics data to solve complex industry challenges, from vehicle tracking and predictive maintenance to safety and digital documentation. Their AI-driven insights are redefining efficiency for mid-market and enterprise clients, aligning perfectly with the digital transformation wave in India’s $400B+ logistics sector. IPO Readiness: With this funding, Fleetx is accelerating product development and scaling its enterprise sales engine, eyeing IPO readiness within two years. At BEENEXT, we back founders who combine deep industry understanding with capital-efficient growth, and Vineet Sharma and the Fleetx team embody this perfectly. Their metrics-driven approach and ability to deliver measurable value to clients like Ultratech Cement and Godrej make them a standout in India’s SaaS ecosystem. As Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO of IndiaMART, aptly said, “Fleetx’s AI- and IoT-powered platform is becoming the operating system for the physical movement of goods.” We’re proud to continue this journey with Fleetx as they build a durable, resilient, and competitive SaaS company from India. Congratulations to the entire Fleetx team on this milestone. More about Fleetx’s Series C: https://lnkd.in/gbWEyRkK CNBC interview: https://lnkd.in/gx22cD_g #LogisticsTech #SaaS #AI #IoT #FleetManagement #StartupIndia #SeriesCFunding #IPO #IndiaMART #BEENEXT #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #TechForGood #DigitalTransformation Vineet Sharma Abhay Jeet Gupta

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🔬 BYT Capital Launches Maiden ₹180 Crore Deep-Tech Fund Deep-tech focused VC firm BYT Capital has launched its maiden ₹180 crore (Category II AIF) fund to back early scientific and engineering innovation. Founded by Amit Chand, Dinesh Kumar, and partners, the fund has already secured over half its corpus. BYT Capital plans to invest in 18 to 20 startups, offering initial cheques between ₹3 crore and ₹6 crore. A substantial 55% of the fund is reserved for follow-on rounds to help portfolio companies scale their technologies globally. The firm targets intellectual property-led innovation across sectors like space technology, life sciences, robotics, and clean energy. Founder Amit Chand emphasized that "DeepTech is the new infrastructure layer... It enables strategic independence, propels high-value manufacturing, and strengthens India's position in global frontier innovation." Read the story: https://ow.ly/E00l50XHjg4 #DeepTechFund #VentureCapital #InnovationIndia #TechStartups #StartupEcosystem #CleanEnergyTech #SpaceTechnology 

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This is a great step forward. GST had become to complex and too big to serve its original purpose of unifying India into a one large market rather than several fragmented markets with "Chungi" (custom duty) being charged at several intermediate points along the way between various long haul routes. It was also meant to be simple to encourage broader compliance. I guess two tiers are better than four and maximum of 18% is much better than maximum of 28% but why could it not be a single tier of 18%? Is 5% tier really necessary? It is meant to be a consumption tax. We need to impose it on everything equally beyond basic necessities consumed by poor people. In any case, it is a great step forward. No need to spend cycles to differentiate between Rotis and Parathas! https://lnkd.in/gcE7npbj

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Healthcare in India has quietly shifted. What was once a mission-led sector is now a PE-owned asset class. Most of the country’s leading hospitals are no longer promoter-led. They are backed by Private Equity funds chasing scale and returns. Temasek → Manipal Hospitals (MHEPL) Blackstone → CARE Hospitals, Quality CARE India Limited CVC / KKR → HealthCare Global General Atlantic → Ujala Cygnus Hospital KKR → Baby Memorial Hospitals This shift has undeniable positives: capital inflows, modern infrastructure, global best practices. But it also hardwires ROI targets into an industry built on empathy. And the trade-offs are visible: - Profitable procedures prioritized over basic care - Luxury patient experiences over affordability - Operational efficiency over emotional connect The sector needs growth capital - no doubt. But when healthcare becomes just another asset class, we risk eroding its very core: quality and accessibility for all. The question: Can we let healthcare become just another profit-driven asset class… without eroding its core - quality and accessibility for all? #india #healthcare #privateequity #growth #funding #asset

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Inflexor Ventures eyes $150 Mn Fund-III first close in Q2 2025 Founded by Venkat Vallabhaneni, Jatin Desai, and Pratip Mazumdar, Inflexor Ventures currently manages over $120 million in assets under management (AUM). The firm has invested in more than 25 startups across deeptech, spacetech, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and consumer technology, reinforcing its reputation as a key player in India’s early-stage venture ecosystem. Read more :- https://lnkd.in/gbj2r7kZ #InflexorVentures #StartupFunding #DeepTechIndia #EarlyStageVC #InnovationDriven

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Healthcare exits in India are accelerating. Tarun Sharma, Senior Fund Manager & Strategy Head, Healthcare & Consumer, 360 ONE Asset shares his insights with DealStreetAsia. Three key forces driving continued momentum are strong profitability, a rise in control deals, and a growing pipeline of specialised healthcare investments. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gHtEmAAd #HealthcareInvestments #PrivateEquity #ExitDeals

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How Long Can a Good Fund Underperform Its Benchmark? -- We show that even a very skilled manager would, over a span of 100yrs, underperform their benchmark for a period of 20yrs at some point during that time. -- The standard performance-measurement periods, such as 3, 5, or 10yrs, are far too short to evaluate a manager w/ confidence. via Morningstar

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We need work on solution than employing the problem. There are disturbing news in market in last two days.. “Subprime loans in India are teetering on the edge of a fresh crisis, with surveys showing signs of distress among 68% of borrowers.” - Bloomberg “In Haveri district, over 70,000 microfinance accounts became non-performing assets (NPAs) due to defaults on March 31”. - TOI Big question- Cutting the credit flow to small borrowers and more stringent norms of lending are going to solve the problem - it’s BIG no . It will create more problems . Working capital will dry at borrowers end and as well at MFIs and evatualy both will have BIG losses and start defaulting . RBI / MOF should come forward and have transparent and honest discussion. MFI / NBFC leaders must speak of their mind to narrate the real problem and work on solutions . Extraordinary problem requires extraordinary efforts

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