Venture-capital firm BAT VC has announced its entry into India, unveiling plans to invest up to US$100 m through its second fund, targeting early-stage deep-tech and artificial-intelligence (AI) startups.
India’s AI sector is entering a golden era growing at 32 % annually and projected to reach US$23 bn by 2027. The country now boasts a pool of over 450,000 AI/ML professionals and an ecosystem ripe for global scale. In parallel India’s enterprise-SaaS market has surged to US$8.7 bn growing at a 35 % CAGR—twice the global average
Venture-capital firm BAT VC has announced its entry into India, unveiling plans to invest up to US$100 m through its second fund, targeting early-stage deep-tech and artificial-intelligence (AI) startups.
The new India-focused initiative will be spearheaded by BAT VC’s three general partners: Manish Maheshwari, former Twitter India head, Mason Fellow at Harvard University and former Flipkart executive whose AI venture, Fanory.ai, was recently acquired; Aditya Mishra, who achieved a successful entrepreneurial exit with FaceLogique and has held executive roles at Yahoo!, G/O Media, Accenture and EY; and Ravi Metta, former CTO at Finastra and product-engineering leader at Intuit.
“We aim to back Indian founders building globally relevant AI products supported by capital and perspective from both the US and India,” said Aditya Mishra, managing director and general partner.
The firm has garnered significant interest from institutional investors and family offices in both the US and India. India’s AI sector is growing at 32 % annually and is projected to reach US$23 bn by 2027. The country’s enterprise-SaaS market has surged to US$8.7 bn growing at a 35 % CAGR—twice the global average—while US-India cross-border AI investments increased by 180 % to US$4.7 bn in 2023.
Fund II builds on BAT VC’s previous investments in Wand AI, StockGro and Uptiq AI as well as Nickelytics and Accern which were later acquired.
India’s AI sector is entering a golden era growing at 32 % annually and projected to reach US$23 bn by 2027. The country now boasts a pool of over 450,000 AI/ML professionals and an ecosystem ripe for global scale. In parallel India’s enterprise-SaaS market has surged to US$8.7 bn growing at a 35 % CAGR—twice the global average. US-India cross-border AI investments grew by 180 % to US$4.7 bn in 2023 and the convergence of talent, capital and market access has created a uniquely compelling investment landscape.