Vertex Ventures SEA & India: the Temasek-backed early-stage fund writing $2-10M cheques across India

For early-stage founders building for India's digital economy - or building in India for the world - Vertex Ventures SEA & India (VVSEAI) is one of the most quietly consequential names you can get on a cap table. It is the Southeast Asia and India arm of the Vertex Global Network, anchored by Temasek Holdings.

Investment thesis

VVSEAI is a classic early-stage VC with a sector-agnostic palette, anchored on one big bet: the massive growth potential of the digital economy across Southeast Asia and India. The portfolio tilts toward impact themes: economic empowerment, MSME enablement, inclusiveness and climate action.

Kanika Mayar describes a three-part test for every deal: is the market large enough in India or globally, do the founders truly understand the problem and have the right to win, and can it become a profitable business at scale? General Partner Piyush Kharbanda calls the firm "more a Series A investor... among the earliest investors on the cap table", with a strong appetite for the India-to-global play - Indian-built software, including AI and SaaS, sold worldwide, plus Indian consumer and financial services.

Funds, stages and cheque sizes

The firm manages $1.5 billion across its funds, with 90+ companies and 6 unicorns in its history, per its own site. Vertex Ventures SEA Fund V closed at $541 million (reported by BusinessLine; the firm's own writing rounds it to $540 million), following Fund IV at $305 million (2019) and Fund III at $210 million (2017). VVSEAI is part of Vertex Holdings - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings - and one of six funds in the Vertex Global Network (alongside the Israel, China, US, HC and Growth arms, which share a cross-regional learning platform). The firm invests at seed, Series A and early Series B, writing initial cheques of $2-10 million with significant follow-on reserves, and plans roughly 12 new investments a year from Fund V.

Notable portfolio

The firm's own site names Grab, FirstCry, Nium, Licious, PatSnap, XpressBees, Kuku FM and Kissht. Exits tell the story: Grab IPO'd; FirstCry and XpressBees delivered PE secondary sales; and M&A exits include SpaceMob to WeWork, CloudCherry to Cisco, Glowroad to Amazon and Recko to Stripe.

People

The India investment leadership named on the firm's site: Ben Mathias (Managing Partner), Piyush Kharbanda (General Partner), Kanika Mayar (Partner, Investment & ESG Officer) and Nikhil Marwaha (Partner). In Singapore, Managing Partners Kee Lock Chua and Joo Hock Chua lead alongside General Partner Genping Liu.

Credits and perks

No formal accelerator, application portal or publicly stated startup credits programme exists - be honest about that. The firm does run founder-facing events such as "From First $1M in Funding to First $1M in MRR", aimed at Series A-stage founders, and a monthly newsletter.

How to engage

No open pitch form: engagement runs through founder events, warm introductions and direct contact - 250 North Bridge Road, #11-01, Raffles City Tower, Singapore 179101 (+65 6828 8088), [email protected], and [email protected] for web3 founders.