SenseAI Ventures Research
Overview
SenseAI Ventures describes itself as India's pioneering AI-native venture fund, investing in AI since 2017. It is registered with SEBI as an alternative investment fund (reg. no. IN/AIF1/20-21/0817, a Category I AIF). The firm began as a syndicate that backed AI founders from 2017 and launched its first institutional vehicle, SenseAI Fund I, in December 2023 with a target corpus of INR 200 crore (about $25M). Its portfolio page also lists a "Fund Alpha" group of companies and an "Exited" group.
Investment Thesis
SenseAI invests in AI applications and AI tooling, and says its approach is founder-friendly and AI-first. The site lists the areas it backs: professional services, financial services, enterprise and consumer software, infrastructure, cybersecurity, manufacturing, healthcare, and gaming, media and entertainment. It uses a proprietary framework called VDAT to judge whether AI is foundational to a business model, how deep the technology is, and how strong the team is. The firm also publishes a State of AI 2026 report.
Stage Focus
Early stage. Per Inc42 (December 2023), Fund I aims to back 18 to 20 AI-first startups from seed to pre-Series A, with follow-on reserves for portfolio companies. The site says it partners with founders "from day zero".
Check Size
Not disclosed on the firm's site. Fund I's size and 18 to 20 company target imply initial checks well under $2M, but this is an inference and is not stored as a check-size range. A third-party tracker lists a $3.0M seed round in Code Karma (August 2025), which is the round size, not necessarily SenseAI's check.
Lead Tendency
Not stated. Left as unknown.
Recent Activity
The firm's portfolio page lists eighteen companies. Recent additions include Hypernorm (portfolio management co-pilot for finance) and Code Karma (software quality). The portfolio is grouped into Fund 1 (Hypernorm, Code Karma, Irame, Sherlocks.ai, Llumo, Pipeshift, Confido Health, Floworks, Cureskin, Contineu), Fund Alpha (Jovian, Net, New Bytes, Cyborgintell, Skit AI) and Exited (Tripeur, Third Watch, AV). Inc42 reported four exits in 2023; Tracxn counts six as of October 2026.
Portfolio Highlights
- Cureskin: AI dermatology guidance app
- Skit AI: voice AI contact centre automation
- Irame: audit and compliance automation
- Floworks: AI sales team for CRM
- Confido Health: AI-assisted patient care
- Llumo and Pipeshift: AI ops and model infrastructure tooling
- Sherlocks.ai: reliability engineering
- Jovian: data science education
- Exits: Tripeur (corporate travel), Third Watch (fraud prevention), AV (insurance operations)
Team
- Rahul Agarwalla, Founding and Managing Partner: three-time founder (Matrix Information, Integreon, Smart Insight), investing in AI since 2017
- Raja Gopalakrishnan, General Partner: 30+ years in global technology and banking, joined as GP for Fund I
- Shubham Titare, Principal: ex-pre-seed fund enterprise AI practice, ex-PwC, IIT Bombay
- Varad Katkalambekar, Analyst: deal sourcing and the fund's deal intelligence platform
- Ryna Puri, Investor Relations
- Ananya Agarwalla, Platform and Capital Strategy
- Radhika Rungta, Compliance Officer
- Gaurav Seth, Accounts and Compliance
- An advisory council includes Vibhu Mittal (CTO, Inflection AI), Utkarsh B (ex-Flipkart Chief Architect), James Abraham, and Neelam Dhawan, plus industry experts from Google, Deloitte and others.
Decision Process
Not disclosed. Two partners lead the fund, so a partnership process is likely, but the site does not say.
Founder Preferences
AI-first founders at the earliest stage who are building category-creating products. The firm stresses hands-on help beyond capital: mentorship, coaching, network and go-to-market guidance.
Geographic Focus
India-focused ("Rooted in India, wired for the world"), with the stated aim of helping Indian AI startups scale globally.
Gaps
No disclosed check size, lead tendency, decision timeline, or headquarters city on the pages read. Portfolio company domains were not confirmed from the page, so they are left null for the job-side validator to resolve.