Nandan Nilekani is stepping down as a general partner at Fundamentum Partnership as the firm prepares to raise its third fund, targeting $200 million.
He will remain an anchor investor and will continue to advise the firm and mentor portfolio companies, co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal told TechCrunch.
Aggarwal called the change a title adjustment. Nilekani will keep providing strategic guidance and will continue to mentor the teams the firm backs in Fund III.
Nilekani is one of India’s most prominent technology figures. He co-founded Infosys and led the creation of Aadhaar, the country’s biometric identity system. He has also championed digital public infrastructure, including the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
He started Fundamentum in 2017 with Aggarwal. The firm invests in Indian startups at the Series B stage and later. Its portfolio includes used-car marketplace Spinny, online pharmacy PharmEasy, audio storytelling platform Kuku FM, and AppsForBharat, the developer of the Sri Mandir devotional app.
Nilekani did not respond to a request for comment.
The leadership change expands the senior investment team. Alongside Aggarwal, Fund III will be led by Prateek Jain, who joined in 2017; fintech investor Mayank Kachhwaha, who joined ahead of Fund II; and finance chief Sanjay Chaturvedi, who has been with the firm for nearly a decade.
Fund III aims to back eight to ten early-stage startups building consumer technology, fintech, and AI products. Each deal will receive initial checks of about ₹100 crore, or around $10.5 million. Aggarwal said the firm has begun deploying capital and expects fundraising to finish in 12 to 18 months.
Aggarwal said Nilekani’s commitment to this fund is his largest ever to a venture capital vehicle, though he did not disclose the amount. The firm expects to raise roughly half of the target from international investors, with the rest coming from Indian institutions, family offices, founders, and partners.
This balance reflects how India’s venture capital ecosystem has changed. Indian investors now play a much larger role in domestic funds than they did when Aggarwal helped launch Helion Venture Partners in the mid-2000s.
“When we launched Helion, there was no domestic capital in the country, and all the capital was raised from the U.S.,” Aggarwal said. “Over the last five years, we are experiencing very strong interest in Indian investors to back venture capital firms. Now you can build a venture firm with domestic capital.”
Aggarwal said Fundamentum sees India’s biggest AI opportunity in applications built on existing global models, particularly in financial services, content, and vernacular consumer apps.
The approach highlights that India’s AI ecosystem focuses on application-layer startups rather than companies developing frontier AI models. This differs from the US and China, where firms have attracted billions to build AI models.
The reshuffle follows the departure of general partner Ashish Kumar, who recently launched AI-focused venture fund Fundamentum Frontier Advisors (F2A). F2A also has Nilekani as an anchor investor. Aggarwal said F2A is a separate firm with no operational connection to Fundamentum and that Kumar is not involved in Fund III.
Fundamentum has made 17 investments across its first two funds. Aggarwal said the firm has returned about half the capital from the first fund to investors, and the second fund is now focused on follow-on investments.
What it means
The shift signals a maturing local ecosystem where founders can rely on domestic capital. For teams building AI tools in India, the focus remains on practical applications for local markets rather than competing to build foundational models.
