Chetan Mehta’s Aum Ventures Unveils $80 Million India Innovation Fund II for Early-Stage DeepTech Startups
What is the news?
Abu Dhabi-headquartered venture capital firm Aum Ventures has announced the launch of its second investment vehicle, the Aum Ventures – India Innovation Fund II, capturing a total target corpus of ₹750 Crore (approximately $80 million). Under the leadership of Founding Partner Chetan Mehta, the Sebi-registered Category II Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) aims to empower an upcoming cohort of Indian entrepreneurs who are building proprietary, intellectual property-led technologies capable of expanding across international corridors. To accelerate this deployment, the firm has also expanded its leadership team by appointing industry veteran Nisha Shah as a General Partner.
Why is it interesting?
The strategy behind Fund II explicitly targets early-stage validation, focusing primarily on pre-seed and seed-stage innovations. Individual first-cheque sizes are structured to range between $750,000 and $2 million, with strategic reserves put aside to fuel follow-on capital rounds through Series A and Series B stages. Over its operational lifecycle, the vehicle is projected to establish institutional backing for roughly 25 to 30 high-potential portfolio companies. The investment matrix prioritizes frontier ecosystems, notably Artificial Intelligence (AI), custom semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, aerospace, and defense tech.
This launch scales up the framework established by Aum Ventures’ debut fund in 2022, which successfully deployed $30 million across 24 disruptive startups. Its previous portfolio highlights include high-profile bets such as the private rocket enterprise Skyroot Aerospace, edge-AI hardware optimizer Azimuth AI, and defense robotics builder Sharang Shakti. By matching strategic cross-border advisory networks with early capital, the firm addresses a crucial inflection point in the tech ecosystem, ensuring that domestic intellectual capital seamlessly transitions into scalable solutions for the global landscape.
Read more: Aum Ventures launches $80 Mn India Innovation Fund II