DeVC, a collective of founders, investors, and operators in the startup ecosystem, said it has invested in over 30 startups since its inception earlier this year.
The collective, which derives its name from ‘Decentralized Venture Capital,’ is managed by Aakash Kumar, principal at Matrix Partners India, and Divyanshi Chowdhary, previously an executive at the VC firm.
DeVC “aims to decentralise early-stage investing by shaping a community-first approach to backing and supporting startups,” it said in a statement.
The collective has a supporting fund anchored by Matrix Partners India, with participation from other investors and family offices. DeVC did not disclose the size of the fund.
“Over the last few years, the start-up ecosystem has experienced multiple cycles, underscoring the importance of experienced founders and operators in mentoring the next wave of entrepreneurs. Through DeVC, we aim to be a force multiplier for innovation and learning, fostering sustainable growth,” Chowdhary said.
DeVC invests anywhere between $50,000 and $500,000 in each portfolio company. It aims to make more than 50 investments in sectors including semiconductors, cleantech, spacetech, SaaS, fintech, consumer internet, business-to-business commerce, and Web3.
The community includes a number of startup founders including Razorpay’s Harshil Mathur, Haptik’s Aakrit Vaish, Gitlab’s Anoop Dawar, OneCar’s Anurag Sinha, OfBusiness’ Asish Mohapatra and Vasant Sridhar, Ashwini Asokan of Vue.ai, Chirag Taneja of GoKwik, Jitendra Gupta of Jupiter, Miten Sampat of CRED, Mohit Sadaani of The Moms Co and PaisaBazaar’s Naveen Kukreja.
Besides Aakash Kumar of Matrix, DeVC also includes some other early-stage investors like Rohit MA of PeerCapital, Vishesh Rajaram of Speciale Invest, Rahul Chaudhary of Matrix Partners.
The collective will provide a co-working space along with expertise from its network. It will have physical space for the collective and its portfolio companies, to facilitate roundtables and mentorship workshops. The first hub was launched this week in Bengaluru.
