The firm wrote one of the earliest institutional cheques into Atomberg in 2015, long before energy-efficient appliances became a crowded category. It backed spacetech player Bellatrix Aerospace in 2016-17, before India had a unified FDI policy for the sector. It also moved early into cybersecurity and carbon capture through bets such as CloudSek and Chakr Innovation.In a venture ecosystem that often swings between frenzy and freeze, Inflexor Ventures has a different perspective.
The firm, which recently crossed a decade of operations, today manages more than $100 million in assets across multiple funds, backing 26 companies and clocking over 14 exits. Yet for co-founder and general partner Pratip Mazumdar, longevity in venture capital is less about survival and more about perspective.
“A decade is actually too short in venture,” he said. “The kid is not even a teenager.”
It is a line that captures Inflexor’s worldview. The firm insists its core thesis has remained largely unchanged: back science, engineering and technology-led companies early, price risk carefully, and avoid the temptation to chase crowded sectors.
That consistency, Mazumdar said, comes from having lived through multiple market whiplashes, from the dot-com bust and the global financial crisis to the Covid-era funding surge.
History, in his telling, does not repeat exactly. But it rhymes often enough to reward discipline.
Why valuation still sits at the centre
For Inflexor, the stage of investing matters less than the price paid and the people building the company.
“Whether you do early stage or growth, three things matter,” Mazumdar said. “The founder, the market, and the entry valuation.”
This philosophy has shaped the firm’s behaviour during both boom and bust cycles. During the 2020-21 funding surge, when capital flooded into certain sectors, Inflexor largely stayed on the sidelines. The reason was discomfort with pricing.
“We are very disciplined about valuations,” he said.
Instead of ramping deployment during euphoric periods, the firm has stuck to a measured pace of roughly four to five investments annually.
Pay growth-stage prices for early-stage uncertainty, and the margin for error collapses quickly, said Mazumdar.
Backing execution before the market catches up
If Inflexor has a pattern, it is this: enter themes early, but only when the team and product depth are convincing.
The firm wrote one of the earliest institutional cheques into Atomberg in 2015, long before energy-efficient appliances became a crowded category. It backed spacetech player Bellatrix Aerospace in 2016-17, before India had a unified FDI policy for the sector. It also moved early into cybersecurity and carbon capture through bets such as CloudSek and Chakr Innovation.
Many of these themes look obvious today but were far less so at the time.
Mazumdar frames this not as prescience but as process. The firm avoids tightly defining itself by sector and instead looks horizontally across science, engineering and technology, hunting for product-led businesses building from India for global markets or solving deep domestic inefficiencies.
The common thread, he said, is founders who can build in constrained environments.
“You never know when the funding tide turns,” Mazumdar said. “If that DNA is in place, good times and bad times can both be managed.”
India’s venture maturity
Even as India’s startup ecosystem deepens, Mazumdar remains pragmatic about what has and hasn’t changed.
The quality and depth of venture-backable companies has improved. Exit pathways through IPOs, secondaries and strategic sales are stronger than they were a decade ago. But the fundamental nature of entrepreneurship in India, he argues, was always present.
“India has never had a shortage of entrepreneurs,” he said. “The real question is whether what they are building is venture fundable.”
What has improved meaningfully is the surrounding infrastructure: risk appetite among families, availability of early capital, and the growing maturity of exit markets.
On a rolling ten-year basis, Mazumdar estimates annual exit value in India has already moved meaningfully higher than in the previous decade, a trend he believes will continue.
Capital markets, he is quick to add, will always remain cyclical. The exit window, however, is structurally strengthening.
Fund III and the road ahead
Inflexor is now in the market with its next vehicle, a ₹1200 crore fund for which it has received regulatory approval and is working toward a first close. The fund is expected to back roughly 25 companies, continuing the firm’s early-stage focus while leaning slightly more toward Series A opportunities.
The ambition is not to dramatically change course but to scale what has already worked.
Mazumdar remains openly bullish on sectors such as financial services, healthcare, logistics, cybersecurity and spacetech, all of which he sees as multi-decade opportunities driven by structural demand.
“The best years for many of these companies are still ahead,” he said.
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