July 31, 2026: The founders of fintech platform Groww are preparing to launch their second startup investment fund with a target corpus of ₹400-500 crore, marking a larger push into India’s early-stage startup ecosystem.
The new fund will operate under Stargazer, a Category II Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) launched by Groww’s cofounders in 2023 to formalise their angel investing activities. The fund will focus on backing seed and early-stage companies across consumer internet, deeptech, artificial intelligence and emerging technology sectors.
Groww cofounders Lalit Keshre, Ishan Bansal, Harsh Jain and Neeraj Singh are expected to serve as general partners of the fund. The investment vehicle will be financed entirely through the founders’ personal capital, without bringing in external limited partners.
The upcoming fund will represent a larger investment effort compared with Stargazer’s first fund, which had a corpus of around ₹65 crore. The founders are expected to deploy the new capital over the next two to three years while writing larger cheques to startups building scalable technology businesses.
Before setting up Stargazer, Groww’s founders had been investing in startups individually since 2020. The new structure allows them to create a dedicated platform for identifying opportunities, conducting due diligence and supporting portfolio companies.
AI and Deeptech: Groww Founders’ New Bet on Future Startups
Through its first fund, Stargazer invested in startups across multiple categories, including premium ecommerce platform FirstClub, fashion quick-commerce startup Zilo, voice AI company Ringg AI, regtech startup OnFinance AI, healthcare venture Octolife and nanorobotics startup Theranautilus.
The second fund is expected to place greater emphasis on deeptech and artificial intelligence startups as the founders look to support companies working on advanced technologies and future-facing solutions.
The move comes as a growing number of successful Indian entrepreneurs are creating investment platforms after building their own companies. Founder-led capital has become an increasingly important part of the startup funding landscape, with entrepreneurs using their operating experience and networks to support younger companies.
Several prominent founders have built similar investment vehicles, including Zerodha’s Nikhil and Nithin Kamath through Rainmatter, while entrepreneurs such as CRED founder Kunal Shah, Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal, Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal, Myntra cofounder Mukesh Bansal, Lenskart founder Peyush Bansal and OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal have also actively invested in startups.
The planned fund follows a share sale by Groww’s founders and promoter entities earlier this year, where shares worth around ₹270 crore were sold. The capital was expected to support startup investments and philanthropic initiatives.
With Stargazer’s second fund, Groww’s founders are moving beyond building one of India’s largest fintech platforms to becoming long-term capital providers for the next generation of entrepreneurs, particularly those building in AI, deeptech and digital consumer markets.
