• Venture capital firm BAT VC has announced its entry into the Indian market
• The initiative aims to support Indian founders creating globally relevant AI products.
• BAT VC sees a strong opportunity to capitalize on the country's evolving startup ecosystem

Venture capital firm BAT VC, based in New York, has announced its official entry into the Indian market with an intention to invest as much as $100 million (about Rs 834 crore) in startups that work at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), deeptech, fintech and B2B SaaS.

The investments will be made through the firm's second fund, which leverages its global success in investing in high-potential early-stage ventures.

Fund II will focus specifically on India-linked startups developing AI-first products of international relevance. This strategic push follows India's AI market growing at a 25-35% annualised rate and is expected to hit $17-$22 billion (approximately Rs 1.4-1.8 lakh crore) by 2027, a 2024 Nasscom–BCG report states.

The business SaaS market, on the other hand, earned around $11.5 billion (Rs 95,800 crore) in revenue in 2024 and is anticipated to expand at approximately 15% CAGR for the remainder of the decade, Grand View Research estimates.

BAT VC's India venture will be overseen by three General Partners with strong entrepreneurial and technical backgrounds. Manish Maheshwari, ex-Twitter (now X) India head and Fanory.ai founder, will join as India Head and move to Bengaluru to oversee operations on the ground. He is also a Harvard University Mason Fellow and has been an executive at Flipkart and Network18.

He is accompanied by Aditya Mishra, formerly of FaceLogique, and in leadership positions at Yahoo!, EY and Accenture, and Ravi Metta, who has product-engineering experience from his experience as CTO of Finastra and engineering head at Intuit.

"My relocation to Bengaluru reflects our belief in India's ability to power the next wave of AI-led global growth," Maheshwari stated.

Mishra further added, "We want to support Indian founders creating AI products with global relevance, with both capital and insights from the US and India."

Metta said that BAT VC's strength comes from its capability to spot high-impact startups early and navigate them to global scale-up. "Our technical expertise helps us know what's genuinely impactful, particularly in multi-dimensional AI-driven spaces."

Fund II capitalizes on BAT VC's portfolio of high-performing early bets such as Wand AI, Uptiq AI, StockGro, and two exits Nickelytics and Accern through acquisitions. The company's exposure in crossing US and Indian ecosystems will likely remain a robust differentiator as cross-border investments in AI continue to increase. In 2023, U.S.-India cross-border AI investment volume increased by 180% to $4.7 billion, the firm reports.

The company has already generated keen interest among institutional investors and family offices in both the US and India, who are eager to gain exposure to India's tech-savvy innovation economy as they worry about China-centric risks.

India, with a population of nearly 20% of the world's population, continues to get less than 5% of the worldwide venture-capital deployment. BAT VC identifies this gap as an arbitrage opportunity, and its new fund plans to occupy the white space with strategic capital and expertise in a particular domain.

India’s startup ecosystem has matured rapidly. Total venture-capital funding rebounded to $13.7 billion in 2024, according to Bain & Company, after peaking at $36 billion in 2021. Private-equity and venture-capital exits totalled $24.8 billion in 2023, EY-IVCA data show, underscoring improving liquidity.

“India is no longer a frontier it’s a core allocation for forward-looking global LPs,” BAT VC said in a statement, underlining its long-term commitment to the region.