Chiratae Ventures unveils third cohort of seed investment programme

Homegrown venture capital firm Chiratae Ventures on Wednesday announced the launch of the third cohort for its flagship seed investment programme, Chiratae Sonic.

Chiratae Sonic aims to accelerate and democratise the fundraising process for early-stage tech founders by offering standardised deal terms for equity investments and fast-tracking due diligence, the company said in a statement

In the last two editions of Sonic, Chiratae Ventures invested around $25 million in 20 companies at the seed and pre-Series A stages.


According to Venkatesh Peddi, managing director, Chiratae Ventures, the programme is open to companies across all sectors, with a particular emphasis on platforms in areas like deeptech, generative AI, climate tech, and manufacturing tech (Factory 5.0).

It will offer a 48-hour turnaround on seed funding requests and investment pitches for amounts up to $500,000.

“Our focus on swift decision-making and extensive support has enabled founders to establish successful companies. We look forward to continuing this approach with the 2024 cohort, furthering technological innovation in India and beyond,” said Peddi.

Previously, Sonic has invested in startups like BeepKart, Claimbuddy, Emitrr, HexaHealth, Metadome, LocaleAI and Skyeair, among others.

“Sonic is our way of engaging with the seed ecosystem. Our focus is to back audacious entrepreneurs, building technology platforms and products, solving these population scale problems,” Kailash Nath, AVP-Head of seed investments, Chiratae Ventures, told ET.

“Partnering with Chiratae is not just assuring capital but also helping them with multiple partners who help with building companies at various stages,” he added.

Launched in 2006, Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India) has $1.3 billion under management and over 130 investee companies across consumer tech, healthtech, SaaS and fintech. Some of its portfolio companies are Cult.fit, FirstCry, Flipkart, Lenskart, Myntra, PolicyBazaar, Curefoods, amongst others.