New Delhi, May 26 -- Ashish Kumar, co-founder of Nandan Nilekani-backed venture capital firm Fundamentum Partnership, has launched a frontier-tech investment platform named F2A (Fundamentum Frontier Advisors).

The platform received SEBI approval for a new AI and deeptech-focused fund targeting a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore (around $210 million). The platform will also oversee up to Rs 1,000 crore in co-investments alongside the fund, taking the total investment capacity to Rs 3,000 crore (around $314 million).

The new platform will invest in companies operating across consumer, enterprise and physical AI segments. The new fund, named Fundamentum III - AI and DeepTech, is backed by institutional and individual investors, including Infosys co-founder Nilekani, who has joined as an anchor investor.

"Technology-led innovation continues to create new opportunities across sectors. Platforms combining long-term thinking with strong execution capabilities can play an important role in supporting this evolution," said Nilekani, anchor investor, F2A.

Kumar said the platform would focus on founders building long-term technology-led businesses. "We are seeing a structural shift in how AI and deeptech are being built and adopted across sectors," he said.

F2A has also appointed former SIDBI Venture Capital executive Debraj Banerjee as general partner to co-lead its AI and deeptech investment strategy. Banerjee most recently served as senior fund manager and investment committee member at SIDBI Venture Capital and has invested in startups such as QpiAI, Digantara, SigTuple, Myelin Foundry and OTPless.

"We are at an inflection point where AI and DeepTech are moving from experimentation to scaled [up] adoption across sectors," Banerjee said.

The new platform builds on the investment strategy of Fundamentum, the growth-stage investment firm founded in 2017 by Ashish Kumar and Nandan Nilekani. Fundamentum has backed startups including used car platform Spinny, devotional platform AppsForBharat, creator commerce startup Wishlink, logistics software company FarEye and cross-border sourcing platform GenieMode.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.