Inside RTP Global’s Thesis for India’s Next Cycle of Innovation

With India’s startup ecosystem rebounding to $13.7 billion in VC funding in 2024 (a 1.4x jump over 2023), yet facing pressures to build value beyond hype, RTP Global is doubling down on the long game. Entering India in 2011, the self-funded, founder-first firm has carved a niche: no external LP pressure, global networks (US, Europe, Asia), and a patient capital model aimed at category-defining growth.

In conversation with YourStory, Madhur Makkar, Principal at RTP Global’s Asia investment team, reveals how this philosophy drives decision-making, accelerates AI-first bets, and positions India’s next cycle of innovation.

Edited excerpts:

YourStory [YS]: RTP Global emphasises a founder-first approach with no external LP (Limited Partner) pressure. How does this philosophy influence your decision-making when evaluating early-stage startups in India?

Madhur Makkar [MM]: Our founder-first philosophy shapes how we back early-stage startups in India. Because we are self-funded, reinvesting capital from our own prior successes, we don’t operate under external LP pressures or rigid timelines. This allows us to invest early, stay patient, and build alongside founders with long-term conviction. We look for clarity, resilience, and ambition in founding teams and stay aligned with their long-term vision, rather than short-term milestones. This approach enables us to support companies across stages — from the first cheque to breakout and beyond — and has helped many of our portfolio companies grow into category leaders.

YS: With RTP IV being your largest fund yet, how do you balance making new early-stage investments versus supporting existing ‘breakout’ portfolio companies?

MM: Our primary focus in India is on early-stage investments at the Seed and Series A rounds, where we expect to back around 25–30 new companies during this fund’s cycle. At the same time, with RTP IV, our largest fund yet, we have reserved significant capital for follow-on investments to continue supporting teams as they scale into breakout companies. This balanced approach allows us to support founders early and continue partnering with them through their growth journey, ensuring consistency and shared conviction in building category leaders over time.

YS: AI/ML is one of RTP IV’s core sector focuses. What types of AI applications or business models are you most excited about in the India and SEA markets? Do you see opportunities for cross-border collaboration between your India and global portfolio companies?

MM: Cross-border collaboration is core to our approach. As a global fund with teams across the US, Europe, and India, we give founders access to networks, GTM learnings, and talent pools that are otherwise hard to access. We actively enable this through customer introductions, market-entry support, and connections to domain experts. On the investment side, we prioritise outcomes-as-a-service models, with companies like Trupeer and Realfast delivering clear, measurable value.

In AI, we are spending time on vertical applications, voice AI, and infrastructure. Our integrated global model accelerates learning and helps founders build with global ambition from day one.

YS: How does RTP Global evaluate the technical depth and execution capabilities of AI-focused startups, given the rapidly evolving AI landscape?

MM: We start by spending significant time with the founder, which helps us understand their vision, technical expertise, and ability to execute. Additionally, we leverage our global network to connect startups with design partners and early customers across markets, helping them generate initial revenue and gather critical user feedback. This is complemented by the expertise and technical depth we access through our global portfolio — including companies like Datadog, Sumup among others — which gives us direct insight into world-class product, engineering, and GTM standards. This helps us evaluate teams and technologies more rigorously and support our founders with direct guidance from operators who have scaled globally.

YS: RTP Global entered the Indian market in 2011. How has your investment approach evolved in India over the last decade?

MM: Our approach has evolved in tandem with the Indian ecosystem. Today, we are early-stage focused, typically investing at Seed and Series A with initial cheque sizes of $1–10 million, where we are comfortable leading or co-leading rounds. Our sector focus spans consumer tech, fintech, SaaS, AI, EV, and climate tech — and more recently, we’ve also been excited about select D2C brands with deep consumer insights and strong product depth.

A consistent thread throughout is our founder-first philosophy. We partner closely with entrepreneurs for the long term, providing access to global networks, operational learnings, and cross-market insights, rather than pushing short-term milestones. With approximately one-third of our global capital allocated to India, we have deep conviction in this market. Our goal is to be the partner of choice for founders building category-defining businesses over the next decade and beyond.

YS: Looking ahead, what sectors or emerging trends in India excite you most over the next 3-5 years?

MM: While we continue to be sector agnostic, backing pioneers across technology spaces, we are especially excited about how AI will reimagine consumer tech, prosumer workflows, and enterprise SaaS. We also see energy, climate, and AI infrastructure emerging as meaningful long-term themes. And importantly, the rise of Gen Z — not just millennials — will shape the next wave of consumer behavior, influencing how products/ services are discovered, adopted, and loved. Together, these shifts point to a new cycle of innovation, and we aim to partner with founders who are building with this future in mind.

However, our investment lens remains consistent: we look for founders who are reimagining the future and challenging the present, rather than making incremental improvements. Our focus is on backing companies that are building for where India is going over the next five years — and supporting them with conviction, global networks, and long-term partnerships needed to scale enduring businesses.

What the next chapter of venture looks like

As India transitions from an innovation hub to an innovation powerhouse, investors who think globally and act patiently will shape its defining decade. RTP Global’s conviction-first, founder-first playbook establishes a statement in itself that the best returns are transformational: built on trust, time, and the courage to go beyond the obvious.

RTP Global’s belief in founder-led, long-horizon building signals a deeper truth about where the ecosystem is headed: from chasing valuations to creating enduring value. In a world obsessed with exits, RTP Global is quietly helping founders build legacies and companies that outlast trends, define categories, and put India’s innovation story on the global map.