JIIF to Invest Rs 80-100 Cr in Indian Startups
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Key Highlights
JITO Incubation and Innovation Foundation to invest Rs 80-100 Cr in Indian startups. Backing 20-25 startups annually with investments from Rs 1.5-2 Cr.
JITO Incubation and Innovation Foundation (JIIF) is set to invest approximately Rs 80–100 crore in Indian startups over the next 12–18 months. The early-stage investment platform has already deployed more than Rs 150 crore across 100+ pre-seed and seed-stage startups in the past two years.
The foundation plans to support 20–25 startups annually, with typical investment sizes ranging from Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crore, contingent on the stage and sector.
JIIF has also invested Rs 26.5 crore in Mumbai-based Atomic Capital, marking its entry into a fund-of-funds strategy. This move allows the platform to broaden its access to opportunities beyond direct startup investments.
According to JIIF, there are plans to launch an accelerator programme focused on the Asia-Pacific region, covering India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The programme will support early-stage startups across sectors including artificial intelligence, fintech, climate, mobility, and digital infrastructure.
JIIF Chairman Jeenendra Bhandari stated that the company has focused on building a founder-first investment platform that goes beyond capital. He added that partnerships with platforms such as Startup Singham and Lead to Unicorn have helped JIIF access high-quality opportunities.
JIIF’s portfolio is diversified across sectors, including AI and deeptech (15%), consumer and D2C (25%), health (15%), fintech (15–20%), and mobility and sustainability (20%), among others.
Some of its portfolio companies include Aten Porus, Elixia, Zintlr, DTown Robotics, Nautical Wings, BatX, S3V, Stroom, Snackible, and Elefant, across sectors such as SaaS, defence tech, mobility, sustainability, health tech and D2C.
JIIF has reported over 15 exits in recent years. The platform stated that some sectors, including consumer, mobility and fintech, have seen relatively quicker exits through secondary transactions and buybacks.
The platform added that most of its exits have occurred via secondary transactions and buybacks, with returns broadly in line with its target internal rate of return (IRR) of over 20–30% over the investment lifecycle.