A sustainable-packaging maker. An app for stock trading. A lab-grown-diamond brand. A co-living provider.

These are among the companies venture capitalists have funded in India in the past month. It is easier to come across a Donald Trump speech without “great” or “beautiful” these days than it is to find an Indian startup that turns heads.

You can almost hear the scraping of the barrel.

Venture-capital funds in India rustled up a third less from their investors in 2024 than in the previous year, according to consultancy Bain & Company and the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association, an industry body. There were four $100 million fundraises by VC firms in 2024, compared with 10 in 2023.

If deploying the cash you already have is a grind, why would you raise millions more? So the problem isn’t funds; it’s finding companies to hand them to.

Backers of entrepreneurial ventures haven’t parted with so little of their money in years. In the first six months of 2025, VC investments in India totalled $3.6 billion, according to data provider Tracxn. This is not even close to pre-pandemic levels, let alone the lunacy that was 2021 and 2022. In fact, VC funding hasn’t been this low since 2016.

At a time of such slim pickings, a repeat founder could have the same effect on an investor as Nutella on a sugar-deprived child.

Someone who knows how the game is played. Someone whom other VCs have the measure of. Maybe even someone with a chequered history.

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