Tej Kapoor

At Atomic Capital, we are committed to backing exceptional founders building for the next wave of India’s consumption story. The country’s consumer market is expected to more than double by 2030, reaching over $4 trillion, with fashion emerging as one of the fastest-growing categories. By 2030, India’s apparel market is projected to cross $125 billion, driven by a rising middle class, increased digital adoption, and evolving consumer preferences. Fashion, particularly women's apparel, will play a significant role in this growth. Despite being a highly competitive category, we believe there's still white space for brands that combine customer insight, product excellence, and operational efficiency. We are incredibly excited to announce our investment in ANNY. From our very first interaction with the founding team, we felt there was strong alignment in vision, strategy, and focus on building a lean, sustainable, and scalable business. Here's why we chose to partner with them: 1. Aligned Operating Philosophy: The founding team - Japjot, Aveen, and Rahul, shares our belief in building a capital-efficient brand. They focus on solving scale challenges with systems, data, and discipline—not by burning cash. From day one, they valued our partnership beyond just the capital contribution. 2. Distinctive Product Supply: Anny excels at the intersection of freshness × fabric × fit. Thanks to rigorous efforts in curation and sizing, Anny has achieved some of the lowest return and cancellation rates we’ve seen in the category. 3. Lean Inventory Model: The team has cracked a unique approach to managing inventory. Their system allows for timely sourcing of new designs that often become hero products—ensuring working capital efficiency while minimizing stockouts and lost sales. 4. High Consumer Love: With 100% of revenue coming through their own website and a substantial share from repeat customers, the brand has cultivated a deep and loyal customer base. 5. Efficient Acquisition Strategy: Anny has built a robust content engine, helping consumers visualize style and fit on real people. This “real-world relatability” has significantly improved conversion and reduced acquisition costs. 6. A Complementary Team: The founding team brings the perfect blend of design and curation, finance and analytics, and technology—a necessary trifecta to scale a modern, digitally native apparel brand. The founder-market fit here is strong and clear. 7. Strong Revenue Momentum: The team has scaled 7x in 12 months. Consistent growth, increasing repeats, and strong unit economics are a testament to the brand's product-market fit and sharp execution. In our experience, operational discipline, new launch velocity, a data-driven approach, and sharp storytelling can collectively build an enduring brand in Fashion. We believe the Anny team is uniquely positioned to do just that. Atomic Capital Nikhil Patil Manish Jain #ConsumerBrands #Fashion #D2C #IndiaConsumption #AtomicCapital

315

36 Comments

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

160

15 Comments

🚨 RBI’s New Co-Lending Directions, 2025 – Effective Jan 1, 2026 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued new Co-Lending Arrangements Directions, 2025, which will come into effect on January 1, 2026. These guidelines will likely broaden the scope of co-lending 1️⃣ Mandatory Skin in the Game – Each Regulated Entity (RE) must retain minimum 10% of every loan (no shadow partnerships) 2️⃣ Blended Interest Rate – Final rate to borrower = weighted average of each lender’s rate. All fees to be factored into APR & Key Facts Statement 3️⃣ 15-Day Transfer Rule – Partner RE must book its share within 15 days of disbursement. Else, loan stays with originator 4️⃣ Default Loss Guarantee Cap – Max 5% of outstanding loans allowed 5️⃣ Borrower-Level Asset Classification – If one lender marks SMA/NPA, the other must follow 6️⃣ Escrow Account Mandate – All transactions to flow through an escrow, ensuring clear fund appropriation 7️⃣ Full Disclosure – Public list of co-lending partners + detailed reporting in financials Bottom line: Clearer rules, stronger consumer protection, tighter operational discipline >> co-lending just got a lot more transparent. #RBI #CoLending #NBFC #Fintech #Credit https://lnkd.in/gKxrz_hC

72

1 Comment

Advantedge Founders hosted an engaging roundtable on 'The Trump Effect: Shock or Spark for Indian EVs?' today, where key stakeholders from the ecosystem explored the impact of US tariffs on the Indian EV and mobility ecosystem Key areas discussed included localisation of supply chains, impact on exports, new opportunities, amongst others. IFC - International Finance Corporation Hopcharge Belectriq Mobility Statiq OGO Energy Zeno Motherson Group

121

5 Comments

🚀 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

349

78 Comments

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

40

1 Comment

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

144