Vignesh Shankar
Managing Partner
Shapes fund strategy and investments. The official biography describes industrial P&L leadership at Stanley Black & Decker and experience across investment, M&A and business transformation.
LinkedIn profile ↗India / Direct investor
Powering India’s industrial century.
India-focused manufacturing and infrastructure investor, formerly Artha99.
Connect NowReported Fund III chequeINR 20-80 crore
Cheque source dateAugust 2025
Manager-listed portfolio19 companies
Fund III stagesPre-Series A to B
01 / The fund
Backing the physical layer of India’s growth
a99 VC, formerly Artha99, focuses on R&D-led manufacturing, components and sub-systems for large industries, factory automation, and physical infrastructure for AI. It is a manufacturing and infrastructure investor, not a claim that every earlier investment is frontier technology. Its four strategies include proprietary engineering, the shovels that support large industrial projects, connected factories, and compute-related power, cooling and hardware.
The current website labels Fund III live, with a 2026 vintage, $100M+ / INR1,000 crore, and a pre-Series A to Series B focus. This is the manager’s current fund presentation, not independently verified evidence of a final close or immediately available capital. It separately lists Fund II at $12M / INR104.6 crore, vintage 2022, seed to pre-Series A, and Fund I as a deployed proprietary vehicle with a 2020 vintage. These amounts are not added together or treated as a uniform cheque mandate.
In an August 2025 founder interview, YourStory reported planned Fund III cheques of INR20-80 crore and a pre-Series A to pre-Series B focus. Inc42 on the same date reported $5M-$10M and pre-Series A to Series B. Those ranges differ and are not presented as equivalent currency conversions. Both described a $100M target and $30M in soft commitments, not a final close; the April 2026 first-close timing was a plan. December 2025 Economic Times coverage still described the larger fund as proposed. A current standard cheque size was not separately confirmed.
The manager lists 19 companies: 15 in Fund II and four in Fund I. It explicitly marks Technocrats as a partial exit and Futurice as exited. Dated reporting identifies the latter investment as Futurice UK, a subsidiary, not the entire global group. The remaining cards preserve manager listings without independently asserting current ownership. The current focus is India; older overseas investments do not establish an active global mandate.
Official strategy ↗ · Dated Fund III interview ↗ · Alternative reported cheque range ↗02 / Portfolio
Explore by sector
All 19 entries in the current official portfolio, retaining Fund I / II and explicit exit labels. DTT groups companies by their underlying technology; software, career guidance, wellness and data-centre infrastructure remain in Others rather than being relabeled frontier science. Company sites were checked separately from the investment evidence. Parked domains, unavailable sites and the Sidix logo gap are called out on the affected cards.
BioTech 1
Builds portable health-screening devices. Its EzeCheck product measures haemoglobin without drawing blood, aimed at mass and community screening rather than replacing every diagnostic test.
Holding source ↗Energy & Materials 4
Develops switched-reluctance electric motors, which produce torque without rare-earth permanent magnets. Its own site describes patented motor designs for industrial and mobility uses.
Holding source ↗
Develops and manufactures specialty chemicals through R&D, contract manufacturing and sourcing. Its own site serves pharmaceutical, agrochemical, personal-care and fragrance customers.
Holding source ↗
Builds high-voltage electric motorcycles. The T30 product site describes CCS2 compatibility, letting riders use the fast-charging connectors common on electric cars.
Holding source ↗
Develops chemical additives for mineral processing. Its products address grinding efficiency, sticky ore handling, filtration and dust control in existing plants.
Holding source ↗Physical AI 2
Manager-described maker of computer-controlled plasma cutting and welding automation systems for metal fabrication. The company site could not be opened in this check, so this description is attributed to a99.
Company site was unavailable in this check; product description is manager-sourced.
Holding source ↗
Combines vehicle sensors, software and digital-twin models to flag potential equipment faults. A digital twin is a software model of a physical asset; the platform supports fleet maintenance, fuel and vehicle monitoring.
Holding source ↗Semiconductors 2
Chip-scale cooling business. A January 2026 manager announcement describes its work on cooling electronics; a public operating website was not identified, so this card links to the fund announcement.
No public company website verified; opens the dated manager announcement. Name shown in place of a verified logo; the manager uses a chip illustration.
Holding source ↗
Develops Palani, a hybrid analog-digital AI processor platform. Moving computation closer to stored data is intended to cut data movement and energy use; its site reports a 12nm test-chip tapeout, not full commercial deployment.
Holding source ↗Space Tech 1
Develops green hypergolic propulsion, where two propellants ignite on contact. Its current site is a launching-soon page, not evidence of a deployed flight system.
Holding source ↗Others 9
Builds modular edge and micro data centres, with racks, power and cooling for AI workloads. Its TierAI software monitors data-centre equipment and operating conditions.
Holding source ↗
Builds enterprise AI-agent tools for creating, deploying and governing automated workflows. Current products include Agent Studio and on-premise AI options; the investment is not classified as a semiconductor holding.
Holding source ↗
Builds RAPFlow, an enterprise workflow platform combining AI agents, robotic process automation and human review. Its current site describes deployment inside customers' own infrastructure.
The old rapflow.io link did not resolve; current RAPFlow company site checked.
Holding source ↗
Cloud software for wealth managers and families to consolidate financial data across assets and countries. Its current Ethan AI site describes reporting, goal tracking and WealthGPT; it is not a trading platform.
Manager-linked ethan.ai is parked. Current site matched to the company LinkedIn About page.
Holding source ↗
Career guidance and counselling platform for students and institutes. Its current site describes trained counsellors, assessments and placement support, not a hard-science product.
Holding source ↗
Originally Vajro, now linking to Superfans.io after the manager-listed domain redirects there. Builds Shopify mobile storefront and retention tools such as push notifications and loyalty experiences.
Holding source ↗
Collects and processes geospatial data for businesses, including road conditions, location points and traffic probes. Its own site describes field-data collection and image-based analytics.
Holding source ↗
Manager-listed yoga and wellness business. The manager-linked sarva.com domain now shows a sale page; a current operating site was not verified. A parked domain alone does not establish that the company has closed.
Operating-site link withheld: the manager-linked domain is for sale.
Holding source ↗
Futurice UK was the investment named in dated exit reporting, rather than the entire global Futurice group. The linked group site describes design, software engineering and AI services; a99 marks this holding exited.
Holding source ↗03 / Team & connect
Investment team
Ganesh Sathyamurthy
Partner
Works across fund operations, finance, compliance and thesis building. His personal profile also identifies an investment remit at a99.
LinkedIn profile ↗
Asha Venugopal
Partner
Leads the investment function, including pipeline development, evaluation and execution. The manager announced her promotion to Partner on 7 May 2026.
LinkedIn profile ↗
Prem Shanth
Principal - Investments
Sources, evaluates and drives investments in early-stage manufacturing, infrastructure and industrial technology businesses.
LinkedIn profile ↗
Anirudh Gopinath
Principal - Portfolio Ops & Enablement
Works with portfolio founders and on identifying and backing companies. The official title is preserved rather than calling every principal a deal lead.
LinkedIn profile ↗
Khushi Bothra
Senior Analyst
Investment research and manufacturing coverage. Listed as Senior Analyst on the current manager site; her own profile identifies a99.
LinkedIn profile ↗Six investment-related contacts from the current manager roster, with official photographs and personal LinkedIn headers checked. Ganesh has a mixed operations and investment-thesis remit; Anirudh’s portfolio-operations title is preserved. Financial control, legal/compliance-only and founder-office roles are not treated as investment contacts. The older Artha99 team page and some directories differ from the current roster; no departure is inferred from an absent name. Asha’s May 2026 promotion to Partner is separately confirmed by the manager.
Official founder contact route ↗04 / Fund network
Limited partners
No sufficiently identified named LP commitment was verified. Public founder accounts describe school friends, high-net-worth investors and institutional backers without a usable named roster. A first-name-only thank-you is not enough to identify and publish a person as an LP.
Named LPs not verified
Public information gap
This does not mean the funds have no LPs. DBS Bank’s event partnership, advisers, portfolio co-investors and informal mentoring relationships are not treated as evidence of a fund commitment.
Manager’s fund-building accounts ↗Research checked 2 November 2026. Public information is not investment advice or confirmation of available capital.