The company has windened its investment scope to cover Series B and C startups in the regions, alongside its existing focus on seed and Series A rounds.
After investing around $200 million in India since 2020, the VC firm is pushing deeper into Asia, now operating in Indonesia, Japan, and Singapore, and setting its sights on South Korea and Australia.
India is set to receive a major share of the firm’s planned investments over the next five years, said Sandeep Patil, partner and head of Asia at the VC firm. It has invested in eight companies in the country, such as OneCard, Refyne, Jupiter and UpSwing, among others, according to Tracxn data.
“Bulk of our investments in Asia have been in India because of the opportunities in the country. I expect a large chunk of this capital will get allocated towards India eventually. But, that will be on merit,” Patil told Business Standard.
QED Investors closed two funds, Fund VIII and Growth II, with combined capital commitments of $925 million about two years ago. It began investing out of Fund VIII in 2024.
The next phase of investment into Asia would be a combination of funds, however, a “good part of the capital” to be deployed will come from Fund VIII, according to Patil.
QED’s plans to deploy capital in the country comes at a time when funding to fintechs has slowed down for the past few quarters.
Indian fintechs raised $365.5 million in the first quarter of 2025 calendar year (Q1CY25), a 36 per cent decrease from $570.8 million raised during Q1CY24. Sequentially, funding remained stagnant from $364.9 million raised in Q4CY24, according to the data.
However, Patil expects to put in $3 million to $20 million in companies operating in sectors like embedded finance and artificial intelligence (AI) within fintech. Traditional sectors in fintechs such as lending, neobanking, insurance would also be areas of focus.
It would target a 15 to 20 per cent ownership within the companies it plans to invest into, which is about two to four ventures each year in the Asia Pacific region (APAC).
“We try to hit a 15-20 per cent ownership, which is enough for us to feel vested in the company. Any higher ownership, we think, compromises on governance. So, if you own 25-30 per cent, it raises challenges in terms of how much influence does one company have on the board,” Patil said, while explaining his investment thesis.
However, the upper-limit of QED’s ownership in companies would only come after participation across multiple rounds.
On exits, Patil said, “The exits we would like to see are IPOs because that's where the multiples are the highest… When we started investing back in 2020, there were few technology IPOs. What happened in 2024 was a big bonanza and for international investors, it reset our expectations in terms of what can be realised from this market.”
Speaking on the momentum in India’s public markets, which are already showing signs of volatility, he said, “Our fund life is 10 years, we look at outcomes over a 5-10-year horizon. Over a five-year horizon, I think the IPO story definitely returns. It may be back to India later this year, early next year, or maybe middle of next year assuming nothing substantial happens from a geopolitical perspective.”
 "Sandeep Patil, Partner & Head of Asia, QED Investors")