Seafund

Before you pitch

• Seafund is a venture fund that takes equity. This is investment, not a grant.
• Check the fit first: India-domiciled, pre-seed to pre-series A, and building a deep-technology product with defensible IP.
• It says it prefers some early product-market fit, or a proof of concept with visibility to revenue.

How to apply

• Use the Pitch form on the website. The contact page also takes a pitch deck of under 10MB.
• You can also write to the partners through the contact details on the site.
• The site does not name an application window or a deadline.

What to expect

• The analysts take the first conversation, then two rounds with the principal and two with the partners.
• The fund says the process takes between 4-8 weeks.
• It does technical and founder due diligence, then financial, technology and legal checks before closing.

What helps

• Returning founders and non-obvious market opportunities are named as things it values.
• Read its articles and questions page so your pitch matches how it describes its thesis.
• If you are in defence, mobility or Kerala, check its initiatives page first.

Seafund is an early-stage venture fund based in Bengaluru, with a second office in Delhi. Its site says it has backed over 20 companies since 2018 across deeptech, enterprise technology, consumer tech, fintech, spacetech and semiconductors, and now also AI. It is an investor, not a grant or an incubator, so there is no cohort to join and no application window.

Who it is and how it is set up

Seafund describes itself as a team of operators who have built businesses and now invest in the next set of technical founders. Its site says Seafund Venture India Trust is an alternative investment fund registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. Fund I is listed as a Category I fund and Fund II as a Category II venture capital fund. Salamander Advisors LLP is the investment manager. The firm operates only from its Bengaluru and Delhi offices.

What it backs

The fund invests in the pre-seed to pre-series A rounds. Its pages say the startup can have a product built with its first few customers, or be at proof-of-concept stage with visibility to revenue. It looks for businesses with defensible intellectual property, and names semiconductors, AI and machine learning, cybersecurity, space technology, biotechnology, robotics, medtech, EV and alternate fuels. Both business-to-business and consumer products are fine if they rest on deep technology.

The startup must be domiciled in India. The fund says it invests only in India for its current fund, with no geographic limit inside the country. It names Bengaluru, Delhi, Haryana, Kerala, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Indore as places it has looked at.

What it says it looks for

Its pages list four traits: an early company with some product-market fit, returning founders with a non-obvious market opportunity, solutions that give people back their time, and an India-for-India play that can later scale to similar markets and then globally.

What happens after you invest

The fund says it typically takes a board seat and takes the standard rights of a lead or co-lead investor, which vary by round. It has set aside over 50% of the fund for follow-on investment, and says it follows on in the next 2-3 rounds of selected companies. Beyond the cheque, its founder-support page describes help with go-to-market strategy, the revenue model, product priorities, key management hiring, first customer introductions, and vendor partners for compliance, legal, finance, IP filings and software. It says its partners have a collective experience of over 80 years in senior leadership roles across deeptech sectors.

Focus initiatives

An initiatives page lists three tracks. One is dual-use defence startups, in partnership with the Defence Innovation Organisation under iDEX. One is a mobility accelerator curated with Sanchi Connect. One is for startups based or registered in Kerala, where the fund says it has worked with the state startup mission since 2016.

How to approach it

The fund says startups should apply through the Pitch form on the website, and that you can also reach the partners through the contact details on the site. The contact page asks for a recent pitch deck under 10MB. After a deal arrives, the analysts speak to the startups that fit the thesis. It then describes two rounds with the principal and two with the partners, and says the process takes between 4-8 weeks. Before closing, it does financial, technology and legal due diligence through outside firms.

Who runs it

The site names Mayuresh Raut and Manoj Kumar Agarwal as co-founders and managing partners, Narendra Bhandari as general partner and Agam Gupta as principal. It also lists business and technical advisors and mentors. The site says the team speaks to over 2000 founders in a year. The team has a careers route on the site under Hiring.