Rehan Yar Khan, Managing Partner at Orios Venture Partners, shares why disciplined contrarian bets on pivoting startups can create outsized returns in Indian venture capital.
It’s not every day that a venture capital firm turns a startup’s lowest moment into its highest opportunity. But for Orios Venture Partners, that’s the playbook.
In a candid fireside chat at VCCircle Family Office Summit 2025, Rehan Yar Khan, the founder and managing partner at Orios Venture Partners, unpacked his thesis of backing startups in the middle of a pivot — a strategy that defies conventional wisdom but, as he claims, delivers extraordinary returns.
Rehan, who built three companies before founding Orios in 2013, is an early backer of startups in India, having backed names such as Ola and Druva as an early angel. “At that time, we didn’t even know the term ‘angel investing'. We just knew we were backing companies,’” Rehan recalls. After backing many startups like these and co-founding the Mumbai chapter of the Indian Angel Network, Rehan saw a gap.
Angels were bridging startups to Series A without institutional support. That insight gave birth to Orios.
“We (angels) had to do multiple rounds to get them at Series A or B level. So then the idea occurred that why don’t I set up a Pre-A fund?”
Founded in 2013, Orios is one of the earliest institutional Pre-A funds in India, long before the boom of the startup ecosystem.
But it wasn’t just about being early—it was about being selective. Having seen all the cycles of startups in India, around five years ago, Orios sharpened its thesis further: to invest only in companies that had pivoted.
The Pivot Play: Turning Setbacks Into Scalable Success
“Five years ago, a particular insight we developed. And the insight was, our best-performing companies( in the portfolio) had all pivoted. Now even if you look at large, great businesses both Indian and global - you would see that in their journey they made a pivot.”
“Reliance started originally as Vimal. They did that, and then they pivoted to polyester business and then petrochemicals. Globally, players such as Amazon, PayPal, Instagram too made a critical pivot in their journeys.”
Take Country Delight, one of the standout examples of Orios’ pivot thesis. Originally a dairy business, the founders pivoted to a D2C milk brand. Their first iteration as a premium, glass-bottle brand didn’t stick. But the next pivot to a mass-market brand delivering milk through packets hit a chord. Nine months after the switch, 80% of customers were sticking around, triggering Orios’ investment. That bet delivered a 100x return on the first cheque, with a blended 45x return on the exit they made two years ago.
That insight led to a disciplined strategy. Orios started entering companies after a pivot, when two things happen - the product is more attuned to the market and second, valuation resets downward, allowing Orios to buy into three-to-four-year-old startups at the price of an early-stage company. The result?
Mid-stage resilience at early-stage cost.
“Markets view pivots as failures. We view them as learnings,” Rehan noted. “And that's where the alpha lies.”
Backing Superman Founders
Orios’ thesis isn’t just about numbers, it’s also about investing in the grit of these founders, who take the painstaking call to pivot their ventures.
Rehan calls pivoting founders the real superheroes of the startup world.
“Superman is not the guy who flies. Superman is the founder who gets beaten down, went through that emotional drain, has everyone, including their families telling them to give up, and still gets up again.”
So does every pivot work? How does one know if it’s working?
Before writing a cheque, Orios tracks these pivoting companies for 6-12 months to validate traction. Once that’s established, they look for two things: sales, and repeat customers.
“Customer stickiness is the proof of product-market fit,” Rehan explained.
Small Fund, Big Discipline
Orios keeps its fund size deliberately lean, its fourth fund was recently closed, with total AUM hovering around ₹2,000 crore.
“We’re like Mighty Mouse — small but powerful,” Rehan said. “You won’t park a huge capital with us, but you’ll get high-multiple returns.”
What Family Offices Want
Rehan believes Orios’ model resonates most with family offices that are seeking high-alpha, high-conviction bets.
But he has a suggestion for the LPs: co-investments must be treated as portfolios, not one-offs.
“Don’t do one or two co-investments. You need a basket approach to reduce risk.”
The firm’s contrarian stance also extends to hot sectors. While most of the market is going all-in on generative AI, Orios is sitting out - at least for now.
“Right now the market is too hot for Gen AI. We’ll start investing in Gen AI in 2027, when the pivots will inevitably come,” said Rehan. “That’s when the real opportunities emerge.”
On the question of whether he feels lagging behind other investors in the space, who are betting big on AI, Rehan said it takes a lot of courage to keep that FOMO aside.
“Everyone around you, your peers, and they are very smart people, they are investing and you are sitting. You do get scared. But we at Orios have seen this thesis hold. And we hold on to that thesis, with great discipline.”
Instead, the fund is looking at space-tech firms from the 2021 wave, fintech players that have matured post-regulatory changes, and broader applications of AI rather than foundational models.
Rehan closed the session with a hopeful call to founders:
“India has one of the best startup ecosystems globally, great IPO markets, deep venture capital, and a massive consumer and B2B market. There’s never been a better time to build.”
No VCCircle journalist was involved in the creation/production of this content.
