When I first started working in venture capital in India, what stood out to me was how differently the market functioned once I was inside it.
From the outside, India looks expansive: the third-largest startup ecosystem globally, with more than 200,000 startups registered with the government and more than $60 billion deployed annually across private markets. Step inside, though, and it often feels like a small room.
Capital has become abundant. But context and access remain scarce. This dynamic means that India’s most investable decade will reward those who understand it, namely those with the proximity to read it correctly. These are the investors who will know why hiring and dealflow run through personal networks and why risks that seem alarming from a distance are simply how the market operates.
India, from the inside
India’s venture ecosystem runs on proximity and relationships. People know each other. Hiring happens through networks. Capital flows through familiarity. None of this is inherently limiting; it is simply how the ecosystem has evolved. But it does shape who gets access.
It also makes entering the ecosystem harder than it appears from the outside. When I was starting out, I often found myself in rooms where I was one of very few women. At the same time, I was meeting others who were interested in venture capital but didn’t know how to access what felt like a closed network. That stayed with me.
Working across markets changes how you see each one. My perspective became clearer when I started working at Beyond Capital Ventures, an emerging markets fund investing across India and Africa, with a team that brings together local insight and global capital.
Up close, India feels like a system you have to learn. A lot of my role sits in that space. On some days, I’m working with founders who are building strong businesses but still refining how to position themselves for global investors. On others, I’m helping investors understand why something that looks risky is actually normal for this market. It’s rarely about convincing someone that the opportunity exists. It’s about helping them understand it well enough to not misread it.
Below the surface
Some of the most important parts of investing in India don’t show up in a pitch deck. Return profiles, for example, can look very different once operational realities are layered in: tax structures, cross-border flows and timelines for capital movement. I learned this the first time my team worked through the mechanics of an exit from an Indian company, something that initially seemed straightforward on paper. But once we unpacked it as foreign investors, the layers became clear.
Tax was withheld on gross proceeds, not just gains. Refunds came later. Cross-border structures determined how much capital actually flowed back. In that instance, what looked like a little over a 2x return translated closer to 1.6x net once everything was accounted for, with a meaningful difference in how those returns were experienced over time. This isn’t unusual, but it’s also not obvious without local context.
“Beyond capital” is a phrase that gets used often in venture capital but rarely defined. In India, it has a practical meaning: showing up at the right moments. That might mean helping a founder think through a key hire, a conversation before a fundraise, a connection that unlocks the next round. A lot of this work is invisible, but it’s often what moves things forward.
Alpha and impact
In India, impact and returns are tightly linked. Many of the most compelling businesses are solving essential problems: how people access healthcare, how small businesses get credit, how climate risks are managed. Take four examples from the portfolio of Beyond Capital Ventures:
- Clinikk, a healthcare platform, provides integrated primary care and insurance for low- and middle-income populations. It has already insured over 485,000 people, many of whom are first-time policyholders.
- Frontier Markets is building rural distribution infrastructure, reaching over 300,000 customers in a single quarter and enabling access to essential goods and services across underserved communities.
- Fasal uses IoT and data to support over 9,000 farmers with real-time agricultural insights, improving yields while reducing input costs and building climate resilience.
- Lal10 connects global buyers with Indian MSMEs, enabling the sale of 2.4 million products while supporting nearly 6,500 artisans (almost half of whom are women).
These are businesses operating at scale within essential sectors, where impact and commercial outcomes are very closely linked.
A market growing up
What’s changed over the past few years is not just how much capital is coming in, but also how it is being deployed. Investors are focusing on fewer, higher-quality deals. Founders are building with stronger unit economics. Governance is becoming more central. Exit pathways are strengthening, with over $20 billion raised through IPOs and more companies preparing to list. Domestic capital is also playing a larger role, with family offices and Indian institutions becoming more active, adding stability to the ecosystem.
This shift is visible within portfolios. Across Beyond Capital Ventures’ equity funds, several companies are now approaching EBITDA breakeven, and over 60% are developing clear exit pathways through strategic partnerships. As these businesses scale, they don’t always need more equity. They need partners who understand how their business actually works and where it’s going.
Impact discipline is key. Our team tracks over 600 impact metrics across companies, and operates within a 2X-aligned framework, embedding gender into how businesses are evaluated and supported. This helps us understand whether a company is being built to last.
Who gets to be in the room
Gender continues to shape the ecosystem in ways that are often subtle, but persistent. Venture ecosystems, globally and in India, have historically been male-dominated, which influences not just representation, but how decisions are made and opportunities are surfaced.
So when I had the opportunity to build alongside Beyond Capital Ventures, I wanted to approach it differently. We created more entry points and looked beyond traditional hiring pools. Over time, the talent showed up. Today, our India team is 100% women, within a broader firm that is female-led by a single female general partner and a majority-female investment committee. Widening access changed more than hiring. It changed who reached out, how conversations happened, and how people saw their place in venture capital.
The decade ahead
India has always had scale. What’s different now is the combination of scale, sector depth, stronger companies, and a more stable capital base. This is no longer just a growth story. It’s a story about how that growth is built, and how well it holds.
In a market like this, capital alone is not enough. It is not a market you can understand from a distance. It rewards proximity. It rewards nuance. It rewards investors who are willing to engage with what is actually happening, not just what is presented. Who is in the room and who gets access still matter.
That’s what makes it challenging, and that’s what makes it exciting. Because in the end, the opportunity is not just in seeing the market. It’s in knowing how to move within it, well enough to not misread it, and closely enough to help shape what comes next.
Pooja Monga is a Senior Investment Associate and India Lead at Beyond Capital Ventures.
Disclosure: Clinikk, Frontier Markets, Fasal, and Lal10 are Beyond Capital Ventures portfolio companies.
Guest posts on ImpactAlpha represent the opinions of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ImpactAlpha.
