QED Venture Capital, the US-based fintech-focused venture capital firm, plans to invest around $250-300 million in early- and growth-stage startups in India and the Asia Pacific. The fintech-focused firm plans to invest in Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, and across Asia Pacific. 

“We have a growth fund and an early-stage fund,” he said. “For the first cheque, we can deploy anywhere between $3 million to $20 million, and for growth stage companies, we can deploy between $20 million to $50 million,” Sandeep Patil, partner and head of Asia at QED Investors, told ET. The strategy, Patil added, is to invest in growth-stage companies and participate in follow-on rounds beyond initial early-stage funding in Asia.

Transformational impetus 

The funds are all set to make the ball roll in India’s fintech sector through heavy impetus on innovation and customer convenience, whether for people or businesses. This will provide a good opportunity to the Indian innovators and startup founders working in the fintech sector, as a fintech-focused VC is determined to invest in a growth-focused environment for their innovations. 

To read more about Indian fintechs like Razorpay, click here! 

Emphasis on Embedded Finance 

Within India's rapidly evolving fintech landscape, a significant opportunity lies in the rise of embedded finance and the application of artificial intelligence in financial services.  Patil emphasizes interest in companies that seamlessly integrate financial services into consumer-facing platforms, particularly those leveraging unique data sets to improve customer underwriting or unlock innovative financial offerings. 

These models have the potential to redefine how financial products are accessed and delivered across the Indian market.

To read about Razorpay's latest innovation in business UPI, click here!

Previous Investments 

Over the past five years, QED Investors has deployed approximately \$220 million across Asia, making early bets on several Indian startups. These include neo-banking platform Jupiter, credit card sourcing platform OneCard, Upswing, which enables consumer-facing startups to offer financial services, and Efficient Capital Labs, which provides financing solutions to SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies.

Although the fund hasn’t exited any major Indian investments yet, Patil noted that the surge in public markets, driven by active participation from retail and institutional investors, along with a string of successful startup IPOs in recent years, has boosted global investor confidence in India.