“India’s digital public infrastructure is ready up and prepared, the ecosystem is prepared, and the market continues to be fully vast open from a monetary inclusion perspective,” Mayank Kachhwaha, who leads fintech investments on the VC agency, instructed Mint.
Fundamentum just lately led a $23 million Sequence C spherical in Olyv, a private mortgage supplier platform. Nilekani’s VC fund has beforehand participated in Flexiloans’ $44 million Sequence C in June final yr; it led wealthtech startup Secure Cash’s $20 million Sequence B, additionally in June 2025, and eventually, participated in TransBnk’s $25 million Sequence B from August final yr, which was led by Bessemer Enterprise Companions.
Like most VC corporations and household workplaces, Fundamentum is extremely selective in regards to the startups that it invests in, evaluating between 5 to 10 firms each week. That is not to say its engagement with firms begins solely when the agency needs to make an funding. “A few of these are relationships we have constructed for years earlier than we are saying that sure, that is the place we’ll are available, they’re scaling quickly and will use our assist,” stated Kachhwaha.
Fundamentum’s resolution to again extra fintechs comes at a time when India has already seen main gamers like Pine Labs and Groww go public, with extra anticipated this yr. Heavyweights like Razorpay, PhonePe, InCred, Innoviti, Kissht, and PayU India are amongst these which might be anticipated to make preliminary public choices this yr. Whereas many of those are funds infrastructure and credit score options firms, enterprise capital is now banking on a second wave of fintech startups, bringing new enterprise fashions and monetary merchandise to Indian shoppers.
The funding in Olyv marks Fundamentum’s fourth fintech funding, bringing the VC agency’s whole to just about half of the 11 investments it made by means of its second fund, which has a corpus of $227 million.
Sometimes, the agency supplies development capital, writing between $10-15 million as the primary cheque in funding rounds that it leads, earlier than writing bigger follow-on cheques. “We like to return in post-product-market match, the place these firms are transitioning and truly attempting to construct establishments,” stated Kachhwaha.
Areas of curiosity
In the intervening time, Fundamentum would not have a selected goal for the variety of fintech firms in its third fund portfolio. Nonetheless, the agency’s fintech pursuits are primarily in tech-first firms constructing with India as their major market.
Being ‘India-first’ is on the core of Fundamentum’s general thesis. Nonetheless, inside fintech, the agency is broadly trying to again firms throughout 4 segments: micro, small- and medium-sized enterprise credit score, client credit score, wealthtech, and banking infrastructure.
The MSME credit score area, for instance, stays largely underserved regardless of the variety of companies within the sector rising. In response to a report from the Small Industries Growth Financial institution of India final yr, there’s an addressable credit score hole of about ₹30 trillion (roughly $300 billion).
Registrations of companies within the sector shot up from 2.5 crore in March 2024 to greater than 6.2 crore in March final yr, based on the report, indicating a larger want for entry to credit score. It additionally flagged that digital lending for MSMEs, an space of curiosity for Fundamentum, is a ‘giant rising alternative,’ provided that 90% of its survey respondents have been accepting digital funds.
“As India’s gross home product grows, so does GDP per capita, with which we’ll see extra individuals come into the fold of credit score inclusion,” stated Kachhwaha. “We’re additionally seeing firms now transferring up from serving the primary 100 million prospects to chasing the following 400 million customers.”
In wealthtech, the agency sees scope to construct India-specific financial savings merchandise as financialisation deepens. Nonetheless, that too has been altering.
Low danger choices
Over the previous couple of years, inflows into systematic funding plans have skyrocketed. Common month-to-month SIP flows are up practically 2.75X since FY22 and seven.79X since FY17, based on IIFL Capital. “Indians are nonetheless risk-averse, however are comfy with mounted deposits. Utilizing that, it is easy to present them a well-recognized product and begin them on their wealth journey,” Kachhwaha stated.
One other space the agency is contemplating is insurance coverage tech, although it argued that the infrastructure layer continues to be being constructed, equating it to the place India’s funds ecosystem was again in 2015.