Fundamentum Partnership: Nandan Nilekani's fund filling India's Series B gap

The Fundamentum Partnership was founded in 2017 by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal as a "for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs" platform to fill a specific hole in Indian venture: the Series B scale-up gap. Its proposition is leading $10–25M rounds in technology startups that have found product–market fit and need concentrated capital — with board seats and ten-year-plus horizons — to scale.

Investment thesis

Fundamentum backs companies at the inflection from startup to scale-up, writing fewer, larger cheques than a typical early-stage fund. Sector focus spans consumer technology, fintech, AI-native and AI-enabled businesses, and historically consumer internet, Bharat-focused apps, B2B commerce and enterprise tech. The newest fund is explicitly betting on AI and India's Series B opportunity.

Funds, stages and cheque sizes

Fund I launched with a $100M corpus (extendable to $200M) in 2017. Fund III, launched in July 2026, targets a ₹2,200 crore corpus including a ₹400 crore greenshoe, with Nilekani as anchor investor. The sweet spot remains Series B and early-growth rounds of $10–25M, where the firm leads with concentrated bets.

Notable portfolio

Portfolio names include Spinny, PharmEasy, Kuku, AppsForBharat, Stable Money, FlexiLoans, ProcMart and Wishlink. The first fund's portfolio included ShopX, RailYatri, LetsVenture, Sedemac and Power2SME.

People

Nandan Nilekani is founding partner and anchor investor; Sanjeev Aggarwal is co-founder and General Partner, alongside General Partner Prateek Jain, fintech practice lead Mayank Kachhwaha and CFO Sanjay Chaturvedi.

Credits and perks

No formal credits programme is documented; the stated value-add is mentoring by founder-investors. Distinctively, Fundamentum said at launch that it charges no fund management fee or carried interest — a rare founder-aligned structure.

How to engage

There is no public application portal; engagement is relationship-led. The right moment to approach is when you have product–market fit, early scale, and a credible plan for the next 3–5x — Fundamentum leads Series B rounds, so come with a lead-sized round and a scaling story, not a seed pitch. The partners think like operators rather than financiers, so expect diligence to focus on unit economics, repeatability of growth and the strength of the team you are building around you.