Whereas many enterprise corporations appear to solely have eyes for AI as of late, Nexus Enterprise Companions is intentionally splitting its focus for its new $700 million fund.
The agency will again AI startups and hunt down India-focused startups in client, fintech, and digital infrastructure.
AI has soaked up many of the enterprise capital raised globally and the 20-year-old VC agency additionally sees AI as a defining technological shift. Nevertheless it argues crowding right into a single, overheated class carries its personal dangers. India’s digital financial system offers a counterbalance: an increasing market the place AI adoption is rising and alternatives stay extra numerous.
For Nexus, that stability is rooted in its origins. The Delaware-headquartered agency, with places of work in Menlo Park, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, has operated as a single fund and an built-in U.S.–India group since its founding in 2006.
It backs early-stage software program and India-focused startups from the identical pool of capital. Over time, its cross-border software program bets have encompassed a spread from infrastructure and developer instruments to AI agent startups. U.S. portfolio contains firms reminiscent of Postman, Apollo, MinIO, Giga, and Firecrawl, which have develop into extensively adopted in developer tooling and AI infrastructure.
In the meantime, its India portfolio has broadened throughout client, fintech, logistics, and digital infrastructure. A few of its bets there embody Zepto, Delhivery, Rapido, Turtlemint, and Infra.Market.
“AI is a large inflection level, and we’re anchoring on that,” Jishnu Bhattacharjee, a managing accomplice at Nexus Enterprise Companions within the U.S., instructed iinfoai in an interview. “However we’re additionally seeing that many of those AI improvements are literally getting used to serve the plenty higher.”
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Nexus manages $3.2 billion in capital throughout its funds and has invested in additional than 130 firms over time. The agency has recorded greater than 30 exits up to now, together with a number of IPOs, underscoring the depth of its early-stage, long-horizon method.
Abhishek Sharma, a managing accomplice at Nexus Enterprise Companions within the U.S., instructed iinfoai the agency’s candy spot stays inception to seed and Collection A, usually starting with checks as small as a number of hundred thousand {dollars} or round $1 million.
Nexus, which operates with an eight-member funding group, started with a $100 million fund and has stored its fund dimension at $700 million since launching Fund VII in 2023. It usually raises each 2.5 to three years. Bhattacharjee mentioned the rationale for retaining the eighth fund the identical dimension was the agency believes $700 million is the correct amount for its early-stage technique.
“We don’t need to increase cash for the sake of elevating,” he famous.
Though India’s AI journey shouldn’t be as superior because the U.S.’s in lots of areas, Nexus believes India might leapfrog in a number of elements of the AI ecosystem.
Bhattacharjee underlined the nation’s massive expertise pool, rising digital infrastructure, and demand for localized fashions that help India’s many languages and repair wants. These dynamics, he mentioned, are pushing Indian startups to construct AI functions and brokers quicker, usually atop open supply instruments and rising home AI infrastructure firms.
The companions pointed to firms backed by Nexus, reminiscent of Zepto and Neysa, as an example how AI is taking form in India. They mentioned Zepto, the quick-commerce platform, makes use of AI extensively throughout its operations — from buyer help to routing and success — demonstrating how client companies have gotten deeply AI-native. Apart from, infrastructure gamers like Neysa are rising to deal with India-specific wants, together with sovereign AI workloads, localized knowledge dealing with, and help for the nation’s many languages.
Nexus didn’t share fund metrics. The companions mentioned its funds have been realizing important sufficient returns over time to largely fill this fund from returning restricted companions. The agency’s LP base spans the U.S., Europe, the Center East, Southeast Asia, and Japan.
