Chiratae Ventures

Pick the right door

• Chiratae Sonic DeepTech is the only named programme on its site that takes applications from founders outside its portfolio. Its focus areas are energy and climate, AI, quantum computing, biotech and medtech, robotics and advanced manufacturing, and space technology.
• If you are raising a seed round in another sector, the Contact page has a Founders section with a Submit B-Plan form. The site gives no rules, timeline or promised reply for that form.
• Spotlight, Showcase, the Midas Program and the awards are for portfolio companies, investors, family offices and honourees. Do not apply to them as a founder.

Check the window before you spend time

• The 2025-26 Sonic window closed on 16 February 2026. The firm has not published the next one.
• The site banner and the Sonic page have shown conflicting text about whether applications are open, and a leftover row from an older timeline is still on the page. Trust the dates the firm gives in its own announcements and check the Sonic page before preparing a pitch.
• The 2024 Sonic window also had fixed start and end dates, so plan to apply inside a window rather than at any time.

How an application works

• You fill an online form asking for your company name, what you are building, headquarters city, sector, progress or traction so far, contact details, how much you want to raise and a pitch deck.
• The firm says it gives an initial response within 48 hours: either a pass or an invitation to a first pitch.
• A first pitch to the investment team is followed by a decision. For larger investments it may do accelerated diligence first.
• The page says eight to ten startups are selected.

What to prepare

• Be specific about the DeepTech problem you solve and the progress you have made, because the form asks for traction in your own words.
• Know how much you want to raise and be ready to explain it, since the form asks for that figure.
• Have a pitch deck ready to upload.
• The page calls the money a seed investment and does not publish the terms for the DeepTech edition, so ask about them early.

Be careful with stage claims

• The Sonic page says seed. A December 2025 press release says seed to Series A. If you are past seed, say so in your application and ask which applies.
• No page states whether you must be incorporated or based in India. Ask if that matters for you.

Chiratae Ventures is an Indian venture capital firm with its main office in Bengaluru. It was formed in 2006 as IDG Ventures, according to its own awards page, and it invests in technology startups. It is an investor, not an incubator, and its site lists no workspace or facilities for founders. For founders the useful thing to know is how to reach it, and that comes down to one named programme, Chiratae Sonic DeepTech, plus a general business-plan form for seed-stage startups.

How founders can approach Chiratae

There are two routes on the firm's own website. The first is Chiratae Sonic, its seed investment programme, which takes applications through an online form during announced windows. The second is on the Contact page, where a section headed Founders is described as being for startups looking to raise a seed round. Its button opens a short Submit B-Plan form that asks for your name, organisation, designation, work email, LinkedIn address and an uploaded business plan in PDF, image or document format. The site states no eligibility rule, deadline or promised reply time for that form, so treat it as a plain inbound route rather than a programme.

The firm lists a general inbox for queries and an investments and support contact on the same page. Its other programmes, described below, are for its own portfolio companies, investors and family offices, so they are not routes for a founder who has not yet raised from Chiratae.

Chiratae Sonic DeepTech Program

Chiratae Sonic is the firm's seed initiative. The DeepTech edition is aimed at DeepTech startups and names six focus areas: energy and climate, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotech and medtech, robotics and advanced manufacturing, and space technology. A press release from December 2025 adds applied AI and machine learning, defence and the digital economy, and describes the programme as open to founders from seed to Series A. The programme page itself says seed.

The process has four steps. You apply online, the team gives an initial response within 48 hours, which is either a pass or an invitation to a first pitch, you present to the investment team, and a decision follows. For larger investments the firm says it may carry out accelerated diligence before deciding. The page says eight to ten startups are selected. Selected startups are promised access to a Demo Day, a place on the Chiratae Sonic list, and a platform of experts, partnerships and ecosystem support.

The 2025-26 window opened on 8 December 2025 and closed on 16 February 2026 after an extension, with the cohort due to be announced in the first week of March 2026. The firm has not published a date for the next window. Earlier editions ran before this one, and the 2024 cohort also had a fixed application period, so expect Sonic to open and close on announced dates rather than take applications all year.

The pages do not say whether you must be incorporated, whether you must be based in India, or how much traction you need. The application form asks for your company name, what you are building, headquarters city, sector, progress or traction so far, contact details, how much you are looking to raise and a pitch deck. The programme page calls the money a seed investment. It does not state the terms for the DeepTech edition, so ask about them early.

Other Chiratae programmes, and who they are for

Chiratae Spotlight is its portfolio day, where companies it already backs meet investors looking to put in follow-on funding. Investors who want to take part are asked to write to a Spotlight inbox. Chiratae Showcase is a series of sessions across the year in which portfolio founders update the fund's investors and ask them for guidance. The Midas Program is a learning and networking programme that teaches family offices how venture investing works. The Patrick J. McGovern Awards, started in 2016, honour individuals chosen by a jury, and the Pride of India Awards celebrate achievements by portfolio companies. A Specialist Conclave is listed for specialists across private equity and venture funds. None of these takes applications from founders.

You may see Chiratae Innovators mentioned. On the firm's own site that name now leads to an empty page. It does trace back to two older programmes run under the IDG Ventures name, the Digital Consumer Innovators Program in 2016 and the Frontier Tech Innovators Program in 2017, both long closed.

Sectors and stage

The About page groups the firm's thinking by sector: mobility, software as a service, education technology, consumer technology, health technology, climate technology, financial technology, agriculture technology, business-to-business and deep technology. The stage the firm states for its Sonic programme is seed, and its December 2025 release says up to Series A. Its Companies page lists the startups it has backed, including Aether Biomedical, which is based in Poznan, Poland.

Scale

Chiratae describes itself as a firm of about twenty years, running seven funds. It says it has backed eight unicorns. Its pages give different figures for the number of companies it has funded, for IPOs and for exits, and different totals for money under management, so none of those numbers is repeated here. The homepage reports 147 funded companies, and that is the one count shown in the numbers on this page. These are the firm's own claims and carry no date.

Founders often search for the names it has backed. Its pages name Flipkart, Lenskart, Myntra, FirstCry, PolicyBazaar, Cult.fit, Uniphore, AgroStar, Fibe, Vayana, Pixis, Miko, Pando.ai, Agnikul and Aether Biomedical among them.

Funds and regulation

The About page lists eight funds with SEBI registration numbers, five in Category I and three in Category II of alternative investment funds, each managed by a separate manager entity. A separate compliance page shows that Chiratae Ventures India Advisors Private Limited is registered with SEBI as an investment adviser. This is relevant to founders mainly as background on who the investor is. It is not a government scheme or a recognition of Chiratae as an incubator.

Who runs it

The team page lists Sudhir Sethi as Founder and Chairman and T.C. Meenakshisundaram as Founder and Vice Chairman. Venkatesh Peddi and Ranjith Menon are Managing Directors, and Anoop N Menon is an Investment Partner. The rest of the page covers investment staff, finance, legal, marketing and administration, and an advisory board.

Offices, careers and events

The Contact page gives the Bengaluru office at Sobha Pearl, Commissariat Road, a Mumbai office in Bandra Kurla Complex, an office labelled New Delhi that is in Gurugram, and a Chiratae GIFT City listing. The Bengaluru phone number is on the same page. There is a Careers page with a link to apply for openings. The site has no public events listing; Spotlight and Showcase are described as events for portfolio companies and investors.