Stellaris Venture Partners Research
Investment Thesis
Stellaris Venture Partners is one of India's premier early-stage venture capital firms, backing technology and technology-enabled businesses targeting Indian and global markets. Founded in 2016 by Alok Goyal, Ritesh Banglani, and Rahul Chowdhri — all former partners at Helion Ventures — Stellaris set out to create what they describe as "VC 2.0 in India": a stage-focused, expertise-driven fund that prioritizes real growth alongside valuations, not just paper markups.
The firm's most distinctive characteristic is their willingness to back founders at the very earliest stages. A striking 60% of their investments are made at the idea/inception stage — before any product exists and often before a single rupee of revenue. Their tagline "it's never too early to talk to us" reflects genuine practice: some of their most successful portfolio companies, including Mamaearth and Whatfix, were backed before significant traction.
Stellaris describes itself as conviction-led and explicitly states they lead all of their investments. The firm brings deep sector expertise across the team rather than relying on generalist coverage.
Stage Focus
Stellaris invests across four entry stages:
- Idea/Inception: Pre-product, pre-revenue — representing 60% of their portfolio
- Seed: Early product and initial traction
- Series A: Companies demonstrating early product-market fit
- Selective follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies at later stages
Their Fund III (2024) focuses on deploying across 25–30 startups over a three-year period at seed and Series A stages.
Check Size
Based on portfolio transaction data:
- Seed: average $2.5M, typical range $500K–$5M
- Series A: average $6.29M, typical range $5M–$10M
- Pre-seed/Idea: approximately $250K–$1M
Geographic Focus
Stellaris is headquartered in Bengaluru, India, and invests in Indian startups building for Indian and global markets. The portfolio is India-centric with selective global-market plays. The firm has built deep local networks and domain expertise specific to the Indian technology ecosystem.
Sector Focus
While Stellaris is sector-agnostic at the portfolio level, each partner maintains deep sector specialization:
- Enterprise Software & AI/SaaS: Digital adoption platforms, conversational commerce, sales enablement, AI infrastructure, and agentic software (Alok Goyal)
- Consumer Tech & Commerce: D2C brands, creator economy, quick commerce, fashion, lifestyle brands (Rahul Chowdhri, Naman Lahoty)
- FinTech: Lending platforms, credit infrastructure, options trading, neobanking, insurtech (Ritesh Banglani, Mayank Jain)
- Healthcare: Digital health platforms, AI-assisted diagnostics, hospital networks (Swapnali Dalal, Alok Goyal)
- Sustainability & Mobility: Commercial EV adoption, sustainable packaging, shared mobility (Ritesh Banglani)
- Deeptech & AI: Computer vision, physical AI, AI-native software companies (Vardhan Dharnidharka)
Key themes across the portfolio include AI integration into traditional sectors, the Indian consumer's shift to digital-first brands, and India-specific fintech infrastructure.
Recent Activity
Stellaris closed its third fund at $300M in November 2024, bringing total AUM to over $600M. This is the firm's largest fund to date, up from $225M in Fund II (2021) and $90M in Fund I (2017). Fund III continues their early-stage mandate with expanded emphasis on AI, consumer tech, and deep tech.
Recent notable investments include:
- Arrowhead (January 2026): $3M seed round led by Stellaris for a Voice AI platform serving India's BFSI sector
- Pibit.AI (November 2025): $7M Series A for AI-powered insurance underwriting modernization
- Kim (2025/2026): AI customer support platform with human oversight
- Material Depot (February 2026): $10M Series A for curated home interiors marketplace
- Truva (December 2025): $6.3M round for proptech home-buying experience platform
The firm is actively deploying from Fund III.
Portfolio Highlights
Notable exits and milestones:
- Mamaearth (Honasa Consumer): India's largest digital-first personal care brand, IPO on NSE in November 2023 — Stellaris backed at Series A in 2018 and was on the board through the journey
- Whatfix: Digital adoption platform, raised $125M Series E; a leading Indian B2B SaaS company globally
- Slintel: GTM intelligence platform acquired by 6Sense in 2021 — Stellaris was the first institutional investor
Significant active portfolio companies:
- Signzy: AI-enabled no-code digital onboarding for financial institutions
- Propelld: Education financing platform for skills and higher education
- Kiwi: Credit card platform powered by Credit-on-UPI, raised Series B led by Vertex Ventures
- Rigi: Creator monetization platform backed alongside Sequoia and Accel
- Turno: Platform driving commercial EV adoption through financing and discovery
- CARPL: Enterprise imaging AI marketplace accelerating AI in radiology
- Loadshare Networks: Tech-driven logistics network
- Orbitshift: AI-native solution to accelerate enterprise sales motions
- Kombai: AI-led design-to-production front-end coding platform
- Factors.ai: Full-stack Account Based Marketing platform
Team
- Alok Goyal, Partner, Co-founder: IIT Delhi, UT Austin, INSEAD. Former COO of SAP India and Partner at Helion Ventures (invested in BigBasket, Simplilearn, Livspace). Focuses on enterprise software, SaaS, AI infrastructure. Co-founder of Plaksha University. Email: [email protected]
- Ritesh Banglani, Partner, Co-founder: IIT Delhi, INSEAD. Former Partner at Helion Ventures (invested in TaxiForSure, Lifecell). Focuses on FinTech, mobility, software. Adjunct Faculty at IIM Bangalore. Email: [email protected]
- Rahul Chowdhri, Partner, Co-founder: IIT Kanpur, IIM Calcutta. Former Partner at Helion Ventures. Background in product management and consulting (Microsoft, BCG, MarketRx, i2 Technologies). Focuses on commerce, consumer tech, and deeptech. Email: [email protected]
- Naman Lahoty, Partner (promoted November 2024): Two-time entrepreneur, joined Stellaris in 2019. Focuses on commerce, consumer tech, deeptech. Key investments: Dashverse, Zouk.
- Mayank Jain, Principal: Focuses on FinTech, commerce, consumer tech. Key investments: Punch (options trading).
- Vardhan Dharnidharka, Principal (joined 2024): Former AI/ML engineering leader based in New York, relocated to Bengaluru. Focuses on software and deeptech.
- Ishita Agarwal, Investor: Focuses on consumer, consumer tech, and commerce.
- Pranav Condur, Investor: Focuses on FinTech, deeptech, and mobility.
- Sayantan Sarkar, Investor: Focuses on software, FinTech, and mobility.
- Swapnali Dalal, Investor: Focuses on software, healthcare, and deeptech.
- Varun Agarwal, Investor: Focuses on consumer tech, commerce, and healthcare.
Decision Process
Stellaris operates as a full partnership. All three founding partners are involved in investment decisions. The firm emphasizes independent thinking and conviction-led decision-making. They explicitly state they lead all their investments rather than following other VCs.
Founder Preferences
Stellaris explicitly backs what Alok Goyal calls "dreamers who are foolish enough (read: courageous) to pursue their dreams." They favor:
- First-principles thinkers who are iterative and action-oriented
- Founders who can articulate a compelling top-down view of why they're building what they're building
- Founders with domain depth who understand customer pain at a granular level
- Serial entrepreneurs and executives from successful Indian startups
- Mission-driven founders with long-term commitment to the problem
They have backed founders from companies including Myntra, SAP, Ola, Nykaa, Flipkart, and other Indian tech leaders. The firm prides itself on engaging founders before the conventional "fundable" stage, offering an open door from ideation onward.