Cornerstone Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Cornerstone Ventures is a Mumbai-based venture capital firm that backs 'Next Gen Enterprise Tech' in India, investing across enterprise SaaS, deep-tech, fintech, and B2B marketplaces. The firm frames its philosophy as 'winning together' with founders, emphasizing an 'end-game partnership' approach where it stays engaged with companies across multiple funding rounds rather than making a single early bet and stepping back. Cornerstone's thesis is explicitly tied to India's growth story, framing its focus areas around the country's projected $10 trillion GDP by 2035 and the opportunity to connect Indian entrepreneurship with global markets. The firm looks for founders combining domain expertise with the ability to reinvent enterprise business models through intelligence, automation, and market access.
Sector Focus
The portfolio spans a wide band of B2B and enterprise categories: core enterprise SaaS and software platforms, deep-tech and aerospace/defense (unmanned systems via NRT), fintech and credit infrastructure (Credilio, CreditNirvana), B2B e-commerce and supply-chain financing (ofBusiness, Blubirch), healthcare AI (THB, Paper Plane, Watch Your Health), edtech (ASL), HR tech (Enparadigm), martech (Nitro, Wootag), climate tech (Olive Gaea), and blockchain/digital assets (Dhiway). The unifying theme in Cornerstone's own materials is 'sector-focused cohort investing' inside enterprise tech broadly rather than a narrow vertical bet.
Stage Focus
Cornerstone invests from early to growth stage, with a stated preference for participating across a company's full funding lifecycle. Its second fund follows a 70:30 allocation: 70% into Series A and Series B rounds, and 30% into later-stage companies one to three years from a prospective IPO (e.g., its 2025 late-stage check into IPO-bound ofBusiness).
Check Size
Fund II writes checks in the $5M-$15M range per the firm's own public description of the fund, with flexibility to go later-stage for existing portfolio companies approaching liquidity events.
Lead Tendency
Cornerstone both leads and co-invests. It led Groyyo's Series B (2026) and has taken sizable minority stakes in later-stage deals such as ofBusiness's pre-IPO round (2025), typically alongside existing investor syndicates.
Recent Activity
Cornerstone closed the first $40M tranche of its $200M Fund II in January 2025 and has been actively deploying since: a ~$11.7M (INR 100 Cr) late-stage investment into IPO-bound ofBusiness in April 2025, and a Rs 90 Cr first close of Groyyo's Series B in July 2026 (Groyyo is an AI-driven fashion supply-chain platform). On the realization side, the firm has executed three exits from Fund I: Wizgo (acquired by Shiprocket, 2019/2021 reporting varies by source), Intelligence Node (acquired by Interpublic Group for $100M, December 2024), and CreditNirvana (acquired by Perfios, March 2025, generating a 55%+ IRR). Per Managing Partner Abhishek Prasad, these exits have returned roughly 20-30% of Fund I's corpus to date, with several of the remaining ~19 Fund I portfolio companies described as approaching liquidity events.
Portfolio Highlights
Notable names include two headline outcomes: ofBusiness (India's largest profitable B2B e-commerce platform, now unicorn-scale and IPO-bound) and Yotta (a Tier-IV AI/cloud data-center operator). 'Soonicorn' stage names include NRT (aerospace/defense, unmanned systems), Credilio (credit access for underbanked Indians), Mystifly (travel-tech infrastructure), ASL (study-abroad edtech), THB (AI healthcare cloud), Blubirch (reverse logistics), and Nitro (behavioral martech). Earlier-stage names span Enparadigm, Watch Your Health, Sharp Sell, Manage Artworks, Olive Gaea, Dopplr, Wootag, Dhiway, and Paper Plane.
Team
- Rajiv Vaishnav, Managing Partner
- Abhishek Prasad, Managing Partner
- Shreyas Trivedi, Partner & CFO
- Nanika Kakkar, Partner
- Vatsal Bavishi, Partner
- Payal Punatar Doshi, Partner
- Deepak Kumar, Partner (USA)
- Anurag Srivastava, Partner (APAC)
The firm also carries a sizable advisory board (15+ advisors across product, GTM, and BFSI) and a 20+ person support bench spanning finance, compliance, and investor relations, reflecting an operationally heavy, institutional structure rather than a lean solo-GP model.
Decision Process
With two Managing Partners plus a six-person Partner bench organized by geography (USA, APAC) and function (CFO), decisions run through a partnership structure rather than a single decision-maker.
Founder Preferences
Public materials describe a preference for 'exceptional entrepreneurs driven by passion, integrity, excellence & results,' with a 'Founders First' framing and emphasis on domain depth in enterprise business-model reinvention.
Geographic Focus
Cornerstone is explicitly India-focused: virtually all disclosed portfolio companies and both funds are structured around Indian enterprise and B2B opportunities, even where Partners are based abroad (USA, APAC) to support global expansion of portfolio companies.