From Investors To Operators: VCs Embrace The Build-It-Yourself Era

Venture capitalists and fund managers are looking to take more control of what they can build, especially in the age of AI with go-to-market and product development horizons shrinking

The likes of Think9, The Foundery, Smile Group, W Health, VenturEdu, HyKr, Fashion Entrepreneur Fund, Antler India, T9L, Biome are all working around the venture studio and entrepreneur residency model to build new startups

AI has enabled something of a second wave for venture studios in India, with the likes of Prototyze (founded in 2014), Betaworks and Idealab coming up in the first boom before India’s VC ecosystem hit maturity

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W Health Ventures’ managing partner Pankaj Jethwani is not content with just investing. The VC firm’s 2070 Health venture studio arm is instead looking to create businesses from scratch, along with the right partners. 

“It’s about how do we solve a particular problem and get to scale fast. And, those are the two guiding principles,” Jethwani told Inc42.

“It’s about how do we solve a particular problem and get to scale fast. And, those are the two guiding principles,” Jethwani told Inc42.

Most venture capital firms identify and invest in startups across stages based on their thesis, but there are other models such as acceleration and incubation that have also remained popular over the past two decades. Given their diverse focus, VC funds, accelerators and incubators all have been successful to varying degrees. 

In contrast, venture studios like the one Jethwani is building, have not exactly been part of the Indian........

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