Celesta plans to make 4 to 6 new investments in India per 12 months going ahead – averaging about one per quarter – with deal sizes beginning at $1-5 million relying on the chance, managing companion Arun Kumar informed ET.
“Anand is well-known within the Indian ecosystem as a number one seed investor,” Kumar mentioned. “One among our differentiators is the power of the US-India connection that we carry to bear in our fund and for our entrepreneurs, and Anand who has labored and invested in each international locations is an ideal match for the place Celesta goes.”
Chandrasekaran has beforehand served as a companion at Basic Catalyst and been a product government at Meta, Bharti Airtel, and Snapdeal. Most not too long ago, he cofounded AI-native contact centre startup Crescendo AI, of which he’s president.
He’ll proceed at Crescendo as he transitions into his function at Celesta.
Chandrasekaran’s experience in shopper and enterprise software program is predicted to enhance Celesta’s observe report within the {hardware} and semiconductor area, with a selected deal with alternatives inside the AI tech stack.
Uncover the tales of your curiosity
At present, about 15% of Celesta’s 105-strong funding portfolio contains Indian startups, together with drone-maker Ideaforge, AI-powered diagnostics startups OneCell and 5C Networks, semiconductor design firm Aura Semiconductor, and area startup Agnikul Cosmos.“If you happen to noticed the beginning of the India-for-the-world form of firm – and we’re already seeing this in SaaS (software-as-a-service) – as a thesis, we predict this may develop to different areas of deeptech,” mentioned Chandrasekaran, noting areas like AI, defence, manufacturing, crypto infrastructure, and vitality and local weather.
Celesta can carry credibility, deep expertise, and deep entry to India’s formidable founders, he mentioned.
The agency is taking a look at additional deal alternatives amongst fabless semiconductor, area, and bioconvergence startups.
“The worldwide functionality centres of the big firms in India have tens of 1000’s of very certified semiconductor designers, and we anticipate that, as occurs within the US, individuals will step out and begin new firms,” Kumar mentioned.
Celesta founding managing companion Sriram Viswanathan and senior advisor A Paulraj are a part of the India Semiconductor Mission advisory committee.
Capital effectivity is a really engaging a part of investing in India, Kumar mentioned, including that Celesta expects to play an element within the Indian startups who need to scale globally.
After a lull within the VC ecosystem over the previous few years, the outlook for 2025 and past is upbeat, the buyers mentioned, pushed by the macro developments of India’s sturdy GDP development, the theme of resilience, and deeper collaboration with the US on rising applied sciences amid geopolitical reconfigurations.
Additionally they highlighted the cultural change in India over the previous decade in direction of a higher acceptance of entrepreneurial risk-taking.
Discover more from News Journals
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
