Chiratae Ventures starts seed initiative to enable faster access to capital

Chiratae Ventures, India’s leading venture capital advisory firm, on Wednesday announced the setting up of its seed initiative Chiratae Sonic to accelerate and democratise the fund-raise process for founders. The initiative guarantees a 48-hour turnaround time on seed fund requests/pitches for investments less than or equal to $500,000.

Chiratae has also introduced an application form and a dedicated website to make the process even simpler for early-stage founders. Aligned with Chiratae’s commitment towards empowering the homegrown startup ecosystem, the initiative aims to enable quicker access to capital for founders and help them prioritise innovation. The initiative will be rolled out in phases, with the first phase going live today. Chiratae is accepting applications under Chiratae Sonic for the next 30 days. 

Chiratae Sonic is the eighth seed investment programme rolled out by Chiratae in line with their efforts to empower and support early-stage ventures.

Sudhir Sethi, founder & chairman, Chiratae Ventures, said, "One of the biggest challenges an early-stage entrepreneur faces is the tedious and time-consuming process behind raising capital. We believe innovation needs to be at the core of why and how founders interact with investors. By solving and simplifying the ‘how’ of that conversation, Chiratae Sonic strives to empower founders to focus on innovation above all.”

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a key collaborator in the Sonic programme and will offer credit of up to $100,000 per eligible startup through the AWS Activate programme, which provides resources like AWS credits, business mentorship, and technical support to help early-stage founders build and scale successful businesses.

In addition to the promise of rapid decision-making for investments via Chiratae Sonic, the initiative entails standard investment terms for equity investments. Diligence for all investments under the initiative will be completed rapidly and remotely with trusted partners.

In addition to capital, Chiratae also offers its portfolio businesses access to the expertise and insights from its Global Advisory Board and India Advisory Council. Chiratae Venture’s Global Advisory Board has Ratan Tata - Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, Kris Gopalakrishnan – Co-founder of Infosys, Bruno E. Raschle - Founder, Managing Director, and Non-Executive Vice Chairman of Schroder, and  Manish Choksi - Non-Executive Vice Chairman of Asian Paints and Dr. Andreas Hettich, Chair, Hettich Group Advisory Board with the additional support of Dr. Ferzaan Engineer - Co-founder and Chairman of Cytecare Hospitals from the India Advisory Council of Chiratae.