NABVENTURES: NABARD's own VC fund — ₹598 Cr+ for agri, food and rural startups

NABVENTURES Limited is the venture capital arm of NABARD — the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development — and a wholly owned subsidiary incorporated in April 2018. It acts as sponsor and investment manager for two SEBI-registered Category-II funds: NABVENTURES Fund I (Scheme I) and AgriSURE – Agri Fund for Start-ups & Rural Enterprises. If you are building for Bharat — farms, food, rural fintech — this is the institutional investor whose DNA is rural India itself.

Investment thesis

The thesis is early-to-mid-stage (venture growth equity) investment in agriculture, food, rural businesses and agri/rural financial services — asset-light, innovation- and technology-led business models solving large problems in agriculture, food and rural development. Beyond capital, the fund offers what it calls patient capital plus access to NABARD's extensive network: decades of rural reach that no private fund can replicate.

Funds, stages and cheque sizes

NABVENTURES Fund I was launched in May 2019 as NABARD's maiden directly-managed VC fund, with a proposed corpus of ₹500 crore plus a ₹200 crore green-shoe option. Per the fund's 2023-24 annual report, the pooled corpus stood at ₹598 crore, with NABARD as anchor investor committing ₹228 crore and NABVENTURES Limited itself committing ₹25 crore as sponsor. Other LPs named in the fund's press boilerplate include SIDBI Fund of Funds, Axis Bank, LIC, SRI Fund, Kotak Bank and Bandhan Bank. Cheque sizes are not publicly stated; 2023-era company statements put deployment at ₹315 crore across 13 startups.

The second vehicle, AgriSURE, was launched on 3 September 2024 by Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan at PUSA, New Delhi, with a total corpus of ₹750 crore: ₹250 crore from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, ₹250 crore from NABARD, and ₹250 crore to be mobilised from other institutions and private investors. It runs two schemes over a 10-year life (extendable by 2): the AgriSURE–FoF Scheme (₹450 crore), investing into Category I & II AIFs; and the AgriSURE–Direct Scheme (₹300 crore) for direct early-stage equity and debt into startups. The fund aims to support about 85 startups.

Notable portfolio

Fund I investments include Jai Kisan (rural/agri fintech — the first investment, in 2020), Unnati (agri inputs + fintech), Vilcart, TenderCuts, KrishiTantra (soil-tech), Satyukt (₹10 crore, satellite agri analytics), TraceX (blockchain traceability), Eggoz ($3.5 million Series A led by NABVENTURES), KBCols Sciences (₹10 crore pre-Series A led by the fund) and Bharat Housing Network (Homeville) (₹125 crore Series A led by the fund). Fraazo was exited at a 2.5x return in about three months.

People

Shaji Krishnan — chairman (chairman of NABARD, as of 31 March 2025). Registered office: Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai.

Credits and perks

No startup credits or perks are publicly disclosed by the fund. It also ran the one-off AgriSURE Greenathon 2024 hackathon.

How to engage

For AgriSURE, startups (and AIFs) may write to [email protected] — the official page warns no money is charged and founders should beware of agents demanding fees. For Fund I and general contact: [email protected], +91-22-26539149. No formal pitch portal or application process is publicly stated.