Shivi Jain

It was a pleasure to join CNBC-TV18 to discuss Atomic Capital's ₹400 Cr+ maiden fund closure and our vision as an Operating VC to transform India’s consumer tech landscape. In this conversation, I shared actionable strategies and perspectives on building sustainable, high-growth startups. 1. Defining Operating VC: Unlike traditional VCs, we’re operational partners—driving value through hands-on support in strategy, hiring, and scaling, minimizing risks and maximizing impact. 2. Consumer and Consumer Tech Focus: With ₹10-30 Cr cheques for a curated 10-12 startup portfolio, we’re backing Consumer brands, Consumer tech companies, and consumer enablers reshaping India’s $2T consumer market. 3. Why Conscious Chemist and Doodhvale Farms: Our ₹50 Cr in four startups targets founders with robust PMF. We prioritize capital efficiency, defensible moats, and 10x growth potential in our evaluations. 4. Investment Outlook: Evaluating 20+ companies with a term sheet for our fifth, we plan 2-3 more investments by year-end, emphasizing high-conviction bets. 5. Emerging Trends: We’re bullish on omnichannel retail, eco-conscious beauty, and tech-enabled supply chains—trends set to redefine India’s consumer behavior. 6. Founder Advice: Prioritize pro-active organization building and capital efficiency. Ruthless focus on unit economics ensures sustainable scaling beyond initial product-market fit. 7. Our Roadmap: Full fund deployment by 2027, targeting 3-5x returns through follow-ons and exits, with plans to explore a second fund to amplify our impact. Thank you, CNBC-TV18, for the platform to share our mission. Atomic Capital Manish Jain Nikhil Patil #VentureCapital #ConsumerTech #StartupsIndia #OperatingVC #Innovation #Entrepreneurship

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Natasha Malpani Launches ₹200 Crore Fund to Power India’s AI Startups Former Kae Capital partner Natasha Malpani has launched Boundless Ventures, an early-stage venture fund with a corpus of ₹200 crore, dedicated to supporting homegrown AI-native startups across India. The fund will focus on pre-seed and seed-stage investments in companies innovating across consumer AI, infrastructure, agent tooling, healthcare, logistics, deep tech, and make-in-India hardware. Boundless has already written its first cheques to startups including Superhealth, Armatrix, PierSight, Knot, and two stealth ventures in AI infrastructure and consumer AI. Beyond capital, the fund promises to bring narrative and network support to founders. As Malpani puts it, India today has a once-in-a-generation advantage talent density, digital rails, and ambition to build global AI leaders from day one. At Startup Veda, we’re thrilled to see local capital fueling the AI frontier. This fund signals rising maturity in India’s venture ecosystem—placing conviction behind AI-first founders well before the rest of the world catches on. Join the conversation: Which early-stage AI ventures excite you the most? How powerful is the mix of capital + storytelling for building AI startups? #Startup #AI #VentureCapital #DeepTech #StartupIndia #FounderStories

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A founder who has spent 32 Years building IP-Owned Tech in India's Defense Sector. Ashok Atluri, Founder of Zen Technologies Limited shares a growth story bootstrapped from Hyderabad: -Revenue: ₹60 Cr (FY21) → ₹930 Cr(FY24) -Market cap: 40 Cr (2012-13) → 13000 Cr today -Growth: 400X in 12 years Takeaways from our conversation: 1. India historically imported 65–70% of its defense equipment. Today, defense exports have grown more than 30× over the past decade, with the private sector contributing around 60% of exports. Domestic defense production has increased to ₹1.27 lakh crore, a 174% rise since FY 2014–15. 2. For over two decades, Zen built advanced simulators but struggled to sell them in India because single-vendor bids weren’t accepted. The IDDM policy in 2015 gave preference to IP-owning Indian companies and allocated 75% of the capital acquisition budget to local sourcing. And decades of R&D became a real market worth ₹200 billion. 3. Defense tech startups in India have raised $184 million in VC funding since 2020. Zen’s journey shows that IP-owned Tech built with self-funded R&D can build the most defensible advantage, similar to how Apple captures value through IP rather than manufacturing. 4. Zen’s anti-drone systems were proven in field operations, leading to export inquiries from over 20 countries. This mirrors the broader trend of India’s defense exports growing from ₹1,940 crore (FY14) to ₹21,083 crore (FY24). Field-tested solutions build trust far faster than lab demos or pilot projects. 5. Government fundings are rewarding innovation over manufacturing. Programs like iDEX provide up to ₹10 crore for proven concepts, while DRDO offers ₹50 crore per system under the Technology Development Fund. This shift allows companies to reinvest profits into next-generation R&D. 6. Ashok believes that not all technologies should be patented. Highly secretive or complex innovations can be reverse-engineered if patented. Instead, patent what is obvious to outsiders to protect your competitive edge. 7. Build with a focused approach on Pareto technologies with maximum impact. Instead of chasing every opportunity, Zen concentrated on the 20% of technologies delivering 80% of results, anti-drone systems and simulators. Prioritizing high-leverage areas compounds impact effectively. 8. Time market entry around overlooked gaps: In 2018, drones were a hot topic, but there was little attention on anti-drone systems. Zen entered this gap and was ready when the need became urgent, from regional conflicts to domestic security. Opportunities often lie where others are silent. 9. Create policies around your innovation: Self-funded R&D firms face unique risks that conventional procurement rules often overlook. Zen advocated for new categories rather than adapting breakthrough technologies to unsuitable frameworks, ensuring their innovations could be evaluated on merit. Full Episode https://lnkd.in/gnAFEj3f

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🎯 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚’𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐞 – 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 Grateful to News18 India Gujarati for featuring my insights on India’s evolving startup ecosystem during the Vibrant Gujarat Regional Conference at #Mehsana. The event marked a milestone with MoUs worth ₹11,652 crore signed, major discussions on semiconductors, green energy, and women-led startups, and participation from #Japan, #SouthKorea, and #Vietnam. As a Startup Mentor, it’s inspiring to witness how India is shaping a powerful, self-sustaining startup ecosystem; where every stage, from ideation to incubation, prototype to product, research to revenue, is being strengthened by coordinated efforts of the Government, investors, academia, and industry. With more than 1.25 lakh DPIIT-recognized startups, over 110 unicorns, and initiatives such as Startup India #SeedFund, Fund of Funds, and the Gujarat Startup Policy 2024, India is no longer a follower in innovation ; it’s setting global benchmarks. Co-working spaces, incubation centers, university collaborations, and strong digital infrastructure are ensuring that ideas from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities find wings; not walls. The collective push from platforms like i-Hub Gujarat, GIFT City , Gujarat Technological University (GTU), Vadodara Startup Studio - Parul University, iCreate, Antrapreneur The Business Incubator, Bharat Accelerator, AMSIM Mehsana and many more are creating founders who are solving real-world problems with scale, purpose, and resilience. India’s startup movement isn’t just about funding; it’s about founders with foresight and a nation that now believes in its own innovation. i47 Global Venture Specialists Panchal S K and Associates Startup India Vibrant Gujarat Ganpat University Amrit Mehsana Startup & Innovation Mission M Nagarajan Dr. Mahendra Sharma #mehsana #vibrantgujarat #incubators #incubation #prototype #funding #marketingtips #productdevelopment #pricing #unicorn #employmentgeneration #innovation #startupecosystem #textiles #diamond #heritage #msme

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'Startup India' must be followed by 'Impact India' Tarun Khanna and I write about the population-size impact of non-profit unicorns and the need for government to act like a market-maker to catalyze the ecosystem. We draw a simple learning from how startups are built - they thrive on experimentation and iteration to find scale pathways. This needs unrestricted innovation capital which government must help unlock.The article makes 3 simple suggestions. We strongly believe, that we are at a disruptive moment, where India is positioned to be a vishwaguru on scaling impact to billion+ people, through public-private partnerships crafting sound policy, and using technology and community to execute. We should make most of the moment by treating non-profits as the creative entrepreneurial efforts they can be, just as are commercial startups. https://lnkd.in/g3tSh57M

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