Merak Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Merak Ventures is a New Delhi based, India-focused early-stage venture fund. Its stated thesis is to invest in seed-stage B2B and emerging technology companies that solve real problems and create large-scale impact. The firm says it cares about two things above all: innovation (in science, engineering, products, processes and systems) and impact (on society, the environment and the planet). It describes itself as a SEBI-registered Category I AIF (Merak Ventures Fund I, managed by Merak Ventures Fund Manager LLP, registration IN/AIF1/23-24/1262). Public coverage describes Fund I as a roughly $100M vehicle announced in August 2022, run by the former leadership team of growX Ventures, which is why the portfolio page shows two groups: Merak Fund I and "Fund I (grow x ventures)".
Sector Focus
The website calls the firm sector agnostic within B2B ("most everything in B2B, and most nothing in B2C"). The About page is more specific: it wants founders increasing efficiency in broken supply chains such as agriculture, bringing old industries such as insurance into the modern age, and cleaning up air quality. It has no interest in the next social network, lifestyle brands or other problems of plenty. Partner interest areas include enterprise SaaS, B2B marketplaces and commerce, manufacturing, insurtech, life sciences and genomics, climate tech (agritech, environment, mobility), advanced hardware, clean energy and AI.
Stage Focus
Pre-seed and seed, and pre-Series A "if our stars are aligned". Nothing later. Companies can be at idea, prototype or proof-of-concept stage, and pre-revenue is fine.
Check Size
First cheque of USD 0.5M to 1.5M, with a sweet spot of USD 1M. Follow-ons in later rounds of up to USD 3M.
Lead Tendency
Mixed. Merak led the Rs 6 crore pre-seed in CurvetAI (Economic Times, 6 October 2026) but only participated in SatLeo Labs' $2.2M seed led by Unicorn India Ventures (Economic Times, 6 April 2026). Treat it as both.
Recent Activity
- October 2026: led CurvetAI's Rs 6 crore pre-seed (Pune-based AI workspace, founded December 2025, 100,000+ monthly users).
- April 2026: participated in SatLeo Labs' $2.2M seed (LEO satellite thermal imaging).
- Fund I appears to be actively deploying; the current Merak-branded cohort includes AbleCredit, Atomgrid, CredResolve, Curvet, Farmtheory, Helium, iDO Devices, NeoSapien, Rupyz, SatLeo Labs and Unicel.
- The firm publishes perspective essays on its Stories page, including pieces on collections for borrowers, voice AI "thin wrappers", and the speed-value paradox.
Portfolio Highlights
Current Merak Fund I: AbleCredit (GenAI credit underwriting), Atomgrid (specialty chemicals marketplace), CredResolve (AI collections), Curvet (multi-model AI workspace), Farmtheory (agritech produce distribution), Helium (AI eCommerce intelligence), iDO Devices (electronics ODM), NeoSapien (AI wearable), Rupyz (FMCG distribution), SatLeo Labs (thermal satellite imaging) and Unicel (battery mineral recycling).
Legacy growX Fund I: 4baseCare, Advantage Club, Bellatrix Aerospace, Cell Propulsion, Cosmofeed, CynLr, Lemnisk, Lightspeed Photonics, MedPay, Multipl, OneStack, Pixxel, Progcap, RACEnergy, Uncover, Wellthy and Zuddl.
Listed exits: Claro, Quandl (Nasdaq), FortunePay (Ezetap), BetterButter (Silverpush), Fynd (Jio), Adsparx (Discovery), Wiom, Locus and Aereo.
Team
- Manu Rikhye: Founding Partner. Two decades operating experience and over a decade of early-stage investing. Areas: insurtech, life sciences, genomics.
- Sheetal Bahl: Partner. Climate tech, enterprise SaaS, frontier AI and bleeding-edge tech.
- Pranav Sanghvi: Director. Enterprise SaaS, B2B marketplaces, manufacturing.
- Nakkul Mahajan: Senior Analyst, Investments.
- Priyanshu Kumar: Senior Analyst, Investments. AI, clean energy, advanced hardware.
- Swarup Potta: Associate, Investments. Robotics, spacetech, EVs.
- Dharmender Birhman: Manager, Fund Operations.
- Priya Kumari: Senior Analyst, Fund Operations.
- Sreya Rakshit: Director, Brand and Communications.
- Abraham Thomas: Venture Partner, Quandl co-founder, data, AI and marketplace evaluation.
- Soumitra Mishra: Venture Partner, Claro Energy co-founder, climate tech, Bangalore presence.
Decision Process
Partnership model with deal ownership by individual team members. Each investor lists the portfolio companies they manage. The site does not publish a committee process or timeline.
Founder Preferences
Technical or domain-deep founders solving hard problems in India, with values of authenticity, empathy, excellence and boldness. The firm says it will "back the audacious" and values founders who combine technical insight with business acumen.
Geographic Focus
Strictly India-centric. Essential operations or ties must be in India; the firm says it is not equipped to invest in geographies it does not understand.
Gaps
AUM and fund size are not on the website (third-party sources cite a $100M target). Warm-intro requirements and decision timeline are not stated. Portfolio stage-at-investment is not published, so none is recorded.