Top Venture Capital Firms in India and Southeast Asia (2026): Peak XV, Accel India, Blume and the SEA Funds

The top venture capital firms in India and Southeast Asia now operate in two different climates. India has become the world’s third-largest startup funding market with an IPO pipeline that is returning real cash to limited partners, while Southeast Asia is working through a correction that began in 2022 and only found a floor in late 2025. This guide, part of the Kurums Venture Capital hub, profiles the Indian firms (Peak XV, Accel India, Blume, Elevation, Nexus, Lightspeed India, Z47 formerly Matrix, Kalaari, 3one4, Stellaris, Fireside, A91, Bessemer India) and the Southeast Asian firms (East Ventures, Alpha JWC, Openspace, Jungle Ventures, Vertex, Golden Gate, Wavemaker, Monk’s Hill, AC Ventures, Antler), with their latest fund closes, stage and sector focus, the role of Singapore as the regional hub, what is happening in Indonesia and Vietnam, and how founders should approach each group as of October 2026.

Which Indian venture capital firms lead in 2026?

Peak XV Partners (over $10 billion AUM) is the largest, followed by Accel India, Nexus Venture Partners, Elevation Capital, Lightspeed India, Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India), Blume Ventures, Kalaari Capital, 3one4 Capital, Stellaris Venture Partners, Fireside Ventures, A91 Partners, Bessemer India and Chiratae Ventures.

Peak XV, the firm that spun out of Sequoia in 2023, closed $1.3 billion across three new funds in February 2026: an India seed fund, an India venture fund and an APAC fund, on top of uninvested capital in its growth fund. Its portfolio includes Zomato, Razorpay, Groww, Pine Labs, Meesho, Lenskart, Mamaearth and Go Digit, and the firm reported 35 IPOs and more than $1 billion of realised proceeds in each of 2024 and 2025. Accel India, which backed Flipkart, Swiggy, Freshworks, Zetwerk and BrowserStack, raised $650 million for Fund VIII in January 2025 and, per DealStreetAsia in August 2026, a further $550 million for Fund IX as part of a $3.5 billion global raise across four Accel vehicles. Its stated focus is enterprise AI, “services-as-software”, consumer and manufacturing, with $1–15 million checks from seed to Series A.

Nexus Venture Partners, an India-US firm with Delhivery, Postman, Zepto and Unacademy on its record, closed Fund VIII at $700 million in December 2025 for seed and Series A in AI, enterprise software, consumer and fintech. Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners) runs a $670 million Fund VIII plus a $400 million Elevation Holdings vehicle and backs Swiggy, Urban Company, Meesho, ShareChat and Paytm; Peony’s 2026 survey reports its investment pace roughly doubled over the past year. Lightspeed’s India and Southeast Asia Fund IV closed at $500 million in December 2025 and sits alongside the firm’s $9 billion US raise, giving OYO, Udaan, Darwinbox and Sharechat a path to the global platform. Z47, the rebranded Matrix Partners India, continues at seed and Series A with Ola, Razorpay, Dailyhunt and OfBusiness in its portfolio.

The seed and early-stage layer is deep. Blume Ventures (pre-seed to Series A, $500,000–5 million checks) announced a $175 million initial close of Fund V in October 2025 and backs Purplle, Slice, Unacademy and Lambda Test. Stellaris closed a $300 million Fund III in November 2024 with $100–150 million earmarked for AI. 3one4 Capital runs a $200 million Fund IV and made 22 investments in 2025. Kalaari Capital (Dream11, Cure.fit, Snapdeal) deploys a $160 million fund. Fireside Ventures closed a $253 million consumer-brand Fund IV in December 2025 (boAt, Mamaearth, Yoga Bar). A91 Partners, founded by ex-Sequoia partners, raised $665 million for Fund III in April 2025 for late-seed to growth in consumer, financial services and healthcare. Bessemer closed a $350 million India Fund II in March 2025, and Chiratae reached a $150 million second close of Fund V in September 2025. Sector funds such as Speciale Invest (deep tech, ₹600 crore Fund III) and Omnivore (agrifood, $150 million Fund III) round out the market.

What are the latest Indian fund sizes and stage focus?

The table lists the principal Indian firms with their most recent fund, close date, stage and check size as reported by the firms, DealStreetAsia, Inc42, Pulse 2.0 and Peony’s 2026 survey of Indian investors.

Sources: Pulse 2.0 (Feb 2026), DealStreetAsia (Dec 2025, Aug 2026), Inc42, Peony top investors in India 2026. Check sizes are typical first checks; AUM figures approximate.

Why is India’s IPO wave reshaping its venture market?

Because it has turned paper gains into distributions. Eighteen startups listed in India in 2025, the NSE ranked third globally by IPO proceeds at about $21.6 billion, and more than 190 companies had SEBI approval or draft filings pending going into 2026, with over 48 startups expected to list within 18 months.

The 2024–2025 cohort (Swiggy, Ola Electric, FirstCry, Groww, Lenskart, Meesho, Pine Labs, Urban Company, PhysicsWallah, boAt and others) gave Peak XV, Accel, Elevation, Nexus, Bessemer and Lightspeed exits at scale on a domestic exchange, something European and Southeast Asian firms largely lack. Inc42’s IPO tracker counts PhysicsWallah’s ₹3,480 crore issue as a mostly offer-for-sale deal, and that is the pattern: roughly 63% of 2025 IPO proceeds were secondary sales by existing holders, which is exactly what a venture fund needs to return capital. The 2026 pipeline includes OYO (a ₹6,650 crore filing at a $7–8 billion valuation), Zepto, PhonePe, Flipkart, InMobi, Fractal and Zetwerk, which together could raise more than ₹50,000 crore. We track these outcomes in our biggest venture-backed exits by year series and the route mix in how venture capital exits actually happen.

Distributions explain the fundraising success. LPs re-upped with Peak XV, Accel, Nexus and A91 in 2025–2026 because those firms could show DPI, not just TVPI, at a time when US LPs were complaining about a liquidity drought. The flip side is valuation discipline: several 2025 listings traded below issue price in their first months, and SEBI tightened disclosure rules for loss-making issuers, so firms are now pushing portfolio companies toward profitability 18–24 months before a planned listing rather than growth at any cost.

Which Southeast Asian venture firms matter, and how did the correction change them?

The leading regional firms are Vertex Ventures SEA & India (Temasek-linked, $541 million Fund V), East Ventures ($550 million across two funds), Jungle Ventures ($600 million Fund IV), Openspace Ventures, Alpha JWC (IDR 6.1 trillion, about $430 million, Fund III), Monk’s Hill Ventures ($200 million Fund III), AC Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, Wavemaker Partners and Antler, plus Peak XV’s and Lightspeed’s regional sleeves.

DealStreetAsia’s data with Kickstart Ventures records the damage. Equity funding in Southeast Asia fell to about $1.85 billion in H1 2025, down 20.7% year on year and the lowest in six years, across 229 deals; Singapore took $1.21 billion of that (about two thirds, 129 deals), Vietnam rose 169% to $275 million, Malaysia roughly doubled to $196 million, the Philippines took $86 million and Indonesia collapsed 67% to $78.5 million. H2 2025 recovered to about $3.51 billion, but that figure includes a single $1.3 billion private-equity growth round for data-centre operator Princeton Digital Group led by Stonepeak; strip it out and the underlying venture market was flat. Full-year 2025 counted 461 equity deals, the lowest since at least 2018, with a median seed valuation of $2 million (down from $2.5 million) and four new unicorns, among them Sygnum and Ultragreen.ai. By mid-2026 e27 described the market as having found a floor but not a rebound.

The firms adapted in three ways. Several stopped raising: Vertex SEA & India’s $541 million Fund V (2023), East Ventures’ $550 million (2022), Jungle’s $600 million Fund IV (2022) and Alpha JWC’s Fund III (2021) are all still the latest vintages as of October 2026, and successor funds are either smaller or delayed. Second, the generalist consumer-internet thesis that funded Grab, Gojek, Tokopedia and Sea gave way to B2B software, fintech infrastructure, climate and AI, with Singapore-based deep-tech and AI spin-outs becoming the most fundable category. Third, the region’s investors became net sellers through secondaries and trade sales (the UAE recorded the most regional M&A exits in 2025 for comparison), because the IPO route through the Singapore Exchange has never functioned for tech and the Indonesian exchange cooled after GoTo and Bukalapak traded down.

Antler deserves a separate note because it is the most prolific first-check investor in the region, running residency-style programmes in Singapore, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok and investing in hundreds of companies a year worldwide; we cover its model in our guide to accelerators and demo days as a route to venture capital. Wavemaker Partners (B2B and deep tech), Golden Gate Ventures (which has raised Gulf capital for a Saudi-SEA bridge), AC Ventures (Indonesia-focused) and Openspace (growth, with a Vietnam and Indonesia tilt) complete the picture of active regional leads.

How do the main Southeast Asian funds compare?

Sources: DealStreetAsia, Global Private Capital Association fund-close notices, Altss Asia ranking, firm websites. Several firms’ latest vintages predate 2024; verify current fund status directly.

Why is Singapore the hub, and what is happening in Indonesia and Vietnam?

Singapore hosts almost every regional fund’s headquarters, took about two thirds of Southeast Asian equity funding in H1 2025 and offers English common law, a stable currency, Temasek and GIC as anchor LPs and the Variable Capital Company structure. Indonesia’s funding fell 67% in H1 2025 as its consumer-internet cycle ended; Vietnam rose 169% to $275 million on manufacturing-linked software and fintech.

Singapore’s dominance is structural rather than a reflection of where companies sell. Vertex is owned by Temasek; Jungle, Openspace, Monk’s Hill, Wavemaker, Golden Gate and Antler SEA are headquartered there; and Enterprise Singapore’s SEEDS Capital and the Economic Development Board’s EDBI co-invest directly. The VCC fund structure introduced in 2020 made Singapore the default domicile for new regional managers, and the 13O/13U tax incentives attracted family offices from China, India and Europe that now act as LPs. The weakness is exits: the SGX has no meaningful tech listing track record, so regional founders still look to Nasdaq (Grab, Sea) or to trade sales.

Indonesia was the region’s growth engine from 2017 to 2022, with East Ventures, Alpha JWC, AC Ventures and the local arms of Peak XV and Lightspeed backing Gojek, Tokopedia, Traveloka, Bukalapak, Kopi Kenangan and Xendit. The GoTo and Bukalapak listings traded down, consumer subsidies ended, and H1 2025 funding of $78.5 million was a fraction of 2021 levels. The firms that remain active are concentrating on fintech infrastructure, agritech, climate and B2B commerce. Vietnam is the counter-example: a manufacturing-led economy with a young, technical workforce where Openspace, Do Ventures, ThinkZone, Golden Gate and Vertex have found fintech, edtech and SaaS companies serving the supply chains relocating from China, a theme we discuss in the China, Japan and Korea guide. Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand are smaller but growing, with Malaysia’s Khazanah and Penjana Kapital running state-backed fund-of-funds programmes similar to Korea’s.

How should founders approach Indian and Southeast Asian venture firms?

In India, use the public forms at Blume, 100X.VC, Venture Catalysts and Titan Capital for pre-seed, then warm introductions for Peak XV, Accel, Nexus, Elevation and Lightspeed; in Southeast Asia, apply directly to Antler, Iterative, East Ventures and Wavemaker, and expect Singapore-based partners to ask early about regional expansion and exit path.

Indian firms run structured scouting. Peak XV’s Surge and Accel’s Atoms programmes are the formal on-ramps for pre-seed and seed companies, with cohort-based selection, standard terms and partner access; Blume publishes a founder form; 100X.VC and Venture Catalysts invest at idea stage with standardised iSAFE notes. For Series A and beyond, the firms expect a warm introduction, a data room and a clear answer on whether the company is building for India (a 1.4 billion-person market with thin ARPU) or from India (global SaaS with Indian engineering). We list the application channels in our guide to VC firms and programmes accepting applications in Asia and the Middle East, and our checklist on an investor-ready pitch deck and data room covers what Indian partners now expect to see on unit economics.

Southeast Asian firms, having absorbed the correction, ask harder questions than they did in 2021. Expect a Singapore Series A lead to want evidence of profitable unit economics in at least one country before funding expansion into a second, a credible answer on exit (regional M&A, a US listing or a secondary sale to a growth fund), and a founder team with local operating depth in Indonesia or Vietnam if that is the market. Checks are smaller than in India at the same stage (a $3–8 million Series A is typical), rounds take longer and syndicates often include a corporate (Telkomsel, SCB, MUFG) or a sovereign co-investor.

How do India and Southeast Asia compare with the US, Europe and the Gulf?

India now behaves like a self-contained venture market with domestic exits, roughly comparable to Europe in annual investment but with better IPO liquidity; Southeast Asia depends on Singapore-domiciled capital and foreign exits. Both are increasingly funded by the same global platforms and, since 2024, by Gulf sovereign money.

Peak XV, Accel India, Lightspeed India and Bessemer India are regional arms of or spin-outs from the leading US venture firms, which means an Indian Series B increasingly competes for the same partner attention as a San Francisco deal and is judged against the same AI-weighted priorities. Gulf capital has become the other swing factor: Saudi and Emirati sovereign funds are LPs in Peak XV, Accel and Lightspeed vehicles, Golden Gate has raised a Saudi-SEA bridge fund, and Mubadala, PIF and ADQ have taken direct stakes in Indian growth rounds. We profile those investors in our guide to venture capital firms in the Middle East, Turkey and Israel.

For a founder, the decision between the two regions is really a decision about market size and exit. India offers a large, increasingly monetisable home market and a functioning IPO route, with the trade-off of fierce competition and thin margins. Southeast Asia offers less competition and more white space, with the trade-off of fragmented markets and an exit path that runs through Singapore and, ultimately, foreign buyers. Browse the full VC Firms by Country pillar for the other regional guides, and for a reminder of what happens when a market grows without domestic growth capital, read our note on why Japan has so few unicorns.

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