OTP Ventures Closes ₹500 Cr Fund for Indian Tech Founders
OTP Ventures, led by former BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer, has closed its first fund at ₹500 crore (~$60 million). The fund will focus on early-stage investments in deep tech, SaaS, and infrastructure startups. The launch aligns with an Indian policy environment increasingly supportive of developer-focused and infrastructure-layer businesses, providing a new local capital source for Bangalore-based founders.
- The fund is managed by partners with deep operational and exit experience; Kunal Suri and Saurabh Vashishtha co-founded the video commerce app Simsim, which was acquired by Google, demonstrating a full founder lifecycle from build to exit. Saurabh Vashishtha, an IIT Roorkee alumnus who previously worked at Paytm Mall, is described as the technology-focused partner, having built tech platforms throughout his career. - Before launching the fund, the three partners—Suhail Sameer, Kunal Suri, and Saurabh Vashishtha—had been investing their personal capital through a pooled vehicle since 2016, making over 65 collective investments in startups like Mamaearth, Rupeek, and Traya Health. This extensive angel investing background provides them with a broad network and perspective on India's early-stage ecosystem. - Suhail Sameer’s tenure as CEO of BharatPe provides a playbook on hyper-scaling fintech infrastructure in India. He grew the platform to 12 million QR merchants, disbursed over ₹8,000 crore in loans, and increased revenue fivefold to ₹321 crore in FY22. - The fund's stated interest in deep tech aligns with a significant increase in sector funding in India. Deep tech investments reached $324 million in the first four months of 2025, doubling the amount from the same period in 2024, with Artificial Intelligence attracting 87% of all deep tech funding in the previous year. - This new fund emerges alongside growing government support for the tech sector, including a ₹10,000 crore (~$1.2 billion) Fund of Funds announced in 2025 to channel long-term capital into early-stage deep tech ventures, particularly in AI, quantum computing, and robotics. - Partner Kunal Suri’s experience as COO and Managing Director of Foodpanda India involved tackling complex, multi-city logistics and operations. He focused on using technology as a backbone to optimize a two-way resource network, a valuable lesson for founders building infrastructure or developer platforms that need to manage complex systems. - The founding team's experience is rooted in solving uniquely Indian challenges through technology—a lesson often cited by successful domestic founders who outperform returnee entrepreneurs by deeply understanding local market realities, price sensitivity, and regulatory friction.
