☕️ Going out a bit late with this edition. We had a technical glitch. Welcome to Edition #51.
New to The Runway? Every week, I bring you a curated briefing on the deals, strategies and people shaping private equity and venture capital in India. Send me tips and feedback at snigdha@therunwaynews.com. Keep track of future editions via LinkedIn and WhatsApp.
The Week in Deals
Mid-market focused private equity firm Xponentia Capital expanded its consumer portfolio with DailyObjects, the D2C company that retails high-end smartphone accessories. Xponentia led a Rs 332 crore ($34 million) round, valuing the Gurugram-based company at Rs 1,050 crore.
Anicut Capital and Axiom Asia joined the round, which included a secondary transaction. Early investor Roots Ventures partially exited at 18x.
The capital will fuel DailyObjects’ aggressive offline push as it transitions to an omnichannel play with at least 150 stores planned over the next five years. For Xponentia, the company joins a portfolio that includes The Souled Store, Traya, R for Rabbit and Palmonas — bets on the premiumisation wave in India’s private consumption market.
Overall, investors deployed about $100 million across 15 deals in India last week, leaning toward seed stage transactions in volume terms. Apart from DailyObjects and Beyond Appliances, ticket sizes stayed at sub-$10 million. In addition, two AI infrastructure deals, both with Premji Invest on the cap table, involved startups based in the US, continuing a pattern that has marked early stage dealmaking this year
Let’s unpack the rest of the week.
→ Agentic AI
Five of this week’s deals involve startups whose core product is an AI agent or an enabling layer for agents. Two of those deals were struck in the US by Indian investors. The deals span fintech, GPU infrastructure, enterprise software and agritech.
Clockwork | $31 million
Premji Invest co-led a $31 million round in Clockwork. Wing Venture Capital was the other lead on the transaction. NEA and e& Capital co-invested in the round. The Palo Alto-based startup offers a programmable software layer for GPU clusters. It counts LinkedIn, Together AI and WhiteFiber among its clients. The deal marked the second one in AI infrastructure co-led by Premji Invest within a week.
Catalyst | $30 million
Sequoia Capital led a $30 million seed round in Catalyst, a Silicon Valley-based startup building AI agents that convert ideas written in natural language into trading strategies for retail investors. Peak XV Partners and Premji Invest were among the group of co-investors that joined the round. The deal was first reported by Fortune. “...while retail investing has evolved… the increased access has done little to help users trade richer investment ideas with confidence,” Sequoia said on its website about the founding thesis for the company.
Also notable is that this may be the first instance of Peak XV Partners showing up on the cap table of a Sequoia-led deal, since it split from the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm in 2023.
Desible AI | $3.3 million
Prime Venture Partners backed Desible AI, a Bangalore-based startup building multilingual AI voice agents for the BFSI sector. It raised Rs 32 crore ($3.3 million) in a seed round.
Myca | $1.3 million
Kriscore Capital and Eximius Ventures led a $1.3 million pre-seed round in Myca. Indigram Labs Foundation joined the round. The Bangalore-based startup is building what it terms an AI-native operating system for agri-businesses. The platform deploys agentic automation across areas such as crop surveys, field team management and market intelligence.
Curvet | $0.6 million
Merak Ventures invested Rs 6 crore ($0.6 million) in Curvet’s pre-seed round. The Pune-based startup offers a platform for discovering AI models, forming repeatable workflows and coordinating multi-agent pipelines from a single platform.
→ Consumer
Apart from DailyObjects, homegrown consumer brands in kitchen appliances, bathroom products and lab grown diamonds found early stage cheques.
Beyond Appliances | $11.4 million
Fireside Ventures led a Rs 110 crore ($11.4 million) Series B in Bangalore-based kitchen appliances brand Beyond Appliances. Dharana Capital was a returning investor in the round.
Lorazzo | $1.5 million
Sauce VC led a Rs 15 crore ($1.5 million) seed round in Delhi-based Lorazzo which makes bathroom and kitchen products. Sprout Venture Partners, Panthera Peak and venture lender Alteria Capital joined the round.
Zinara | $0.37 million
Inflection Point Ventures led a $0.37 million pre-seed in Zinara, a Delhi-based lab-grown diamond jewellery brand.
→ Education
ByteXL | $9 million
Elevar Equity led a $9 million Series B in Hyderabad-based edtech ByteXL. Kalaari Capital and The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation were returning investors. The startup offers AI-native skilling solutions in partnership with engineering universities.
→ Deep tech
Quanfluence | $10 million
Chiratae Ventures led a $10 million Series A in Quanfluence. Pi Ventures and Rainmatter co-invested in the round. The Bangalore-based company is building a full-stack photonic quantum computer. It combines indigenously designed photonic chips, control electronics and a software layer in an integrated platform.
→ Healthcare
Sunfox Technologies | $7 million
Ashish Kacholia, Lashit Sanghvi, Alchemy Capital and 3one4 Capital collectively invested $7 million in Sunfox Technologies’ Series A round. The Dehradun-based company makes a 12-led ECG device that runs on a smartphone, designed for environments where conventional cardiac monitoring equipment is difficult to access.
CureMeAbroad | $1.1 million
SteerX Ventures led a $1.1 million pre-seed round in CureMeAbroad. The Pune-based startup helps patients discover and access medical care across international borders.
→ Financial services
NeoGrowth Credit | $8.8 million
Dutch development finance investor FMO and LeapFrog Investments backed NeoGrowth Credit with $8.8 million in growth capital, combining equity and debt. The Mumbai-based digital lender focuses on cash flow-based credit to micro, small and medium enterprises. LeapFrog was a returning investor in the round.
Zomint | $3.7 million
Lightspeed and Prime Venture Partners invested Rs 36 crore ($3.7 million) in Zomint’s seed round. The Chandigarh-based startup offers working professionals wealth management services.
Credfix | $1.6 million
Tanglin Venture Partners led a Rs 16.1 crore ($1.6 million) seed round in Bangalore-based debt resolution platform Credfix.
→ Textiles
IndigoTex | $0.5 million
IAN Angel Fund led a Rs 5 crore ($0.5 million) seed round in IndigoTex, an IIT Delhi-born startup that’s commercialising waterless wool finishing technology for use in wool and wool-blended denim and other fabrics. SIDBI, FITT and IIT Delhi Angels participated in the round.
→ M&A
FMCG major Marico acquired an additional 24.09% stake in Plix for Rs 1,012.03 crore (about $105 million), taking its overall ownership of the plant-based nutrition and personal care products brand to 84.09%, according to a regulatory disclosure. The sellers are primarily Plix founders Rishubh Satiya and Akash Zaveri. A final 14.09%, also held by the founders, will follow in July 2027 for a base consideration of up to Rs 592 crore.
In total, Marico will have paid Rs 1,392.07 crore for the 84.09% stake at the close of the latest tranche. The founders’ combined 38.18% stake will fetch them up to Rs 1,604 crore across both payments, before any milestone bonuses.
Marico entered Satiya Nutraceuticals, the company that owns and operates the Plix brand, in July 2023, paying Rs 369 crore to acquire up to 58%. The transaction was executed over two tranches where Marico first acquired 32.75% on entry, followed by 18.45% in November 2023, creating exits for Guild Capital and RPSG Capital Ventures who had backed Plix’s $5 million Series A in 2021. Subsequently, in May 2025, Marico acquired another 8.8% to increase its overall holding to 60%.
Since Marico’s entry in 2023, Plix has grown revenues from Rs 106 crore to Rs 864 crore. For Marico, the acquisition sits alongside Beardo, Just Herbs, True Elements and Cosmix in its digital-first consumer brands portfolio.
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Funds, Family Offices, Policy
Escorts Kubota’s Nanda family enters venture capital
The Nanda family, promoters of Escorts Kubota, launched Naveli Ventures as its strategic venture investment arm. It will be led by Navya Naveli Nanda, a fourth-generation member of the family. The Nandas founded Escorts in 1944 and grew into a diversified engineering conglomerate making agricultural tractors, railway equipment and construction machinery. In 2021, Japan’s Kubota Corporation acquired a controlling stake and the publicly listed company was subsequently renamed to Escorts Kubota. Naveli Ventures will make direct investments in startups and institutional funds, with a focus on deep tech, space, clean energy, AI, advanced manufacturing and health.
AI regulation consultation paper in a month
India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) will publish a consultation paper on regulating artificial intelligence within a month, multiple media outlets reported. He was speaking at the India launch of the World Bank’s ‘World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence,” in Delhi. The paper will be built on four pillars: safety, a human-first approach, skilling and inclusion.
More (Indian Express, The Print)
A $207 million fund for aerospace and defence
IndusBridge Ventures, an aerospace and defence focused fund led by former Citi India managing director Ravi Kapoor, closed its maiden fund at Rs 2,000 crore ($207 million). The fund is among the largest in this segment. In January, 360 One Asset’s private equity arm raised a Rs 1,000 crore fund focused on defence and space investments, backed by domestic limited partners.
ElevenLabs’ big push into India
London-based voice AI company ElevenLabs outlined plans to invest “hundreds of millions of dollars” in India and is also open to acquisition here, co-founder and CEO Mati Staniszewski told Reuters. Staniszewski was in Bangalore for a summit. India represents the company’s largest market outside the US. It offers speech-to-text and text-to-speech services in 14 Indian languages and plans to cover 22 over the next year. It works with over 250 enterprises including Razorpay, TVS Motor and Havells. Founded in 2022, the company was last valued at $22 billion and crossed a $600 million global annual revenue run rate.
Global Beat
Blackstone sells B2B events biz to SuperReturn owner Informa
Informa, the B2B events group that owns the private equity focused SuperReturn conference franchise, is buying Clarion Events from Blackstone at an enterprise value of £2.24 billion, which represents 11.1x of Clarion’s projected EBITDA for 2027 before cost and revenue synergies, Informa said in a statement. UK-based Clarion brings a portfolio of over 100 B2B event brands including consumer electronics show IFA Berlin and gaming events ICE. Blackstone acquired Clarion in 2017 from private equity funds managed by Providence Equity Partners.
See you next week.
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