India's Axilor launches $30m seed fund

The Axilor Technology Fund will make five to seven investments each year in companies participating in its accelerator program, committing up to INR30 million at a time. It will focus on sectors media and content, consumer and enterprise technology, artificial intelligence, financial technology, and healthcare.

Axilor was established in 2014 by S.D. Shibulal and Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founders of Infosys. It has backed 38 start-ups since its launch. So far all of its investment capital has come from the family offices of the founders. This means the deals were officially categorized as angel investments and subject to the “angel tax,” under which start-ups were required to pay income tax on investments from high net worth individuals that exceed the company’s fair market value.

Axilor’s decision to create a fund structure was inspired by the angel tax, though the tax was effectively eliminated in new tax rules introduced in 2016. The firm went ahead with the fund in order to streamline its investment process and simplify relations with VC firms that might want to invest in its start-ups later.

Last year Axilor partnered with IDG Ventures India to launch the Frontier Tech Innovators Program (FTIP), which invests in companies developing technologies based on cutting-edge research that have yet to achieve widespread commercial adoption. Areas of focus for FTIP include virtual and augmented reality, drones, robotics, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Technology
• India
• seed
• TMT