By Manish Khurana
Founder, Innovations Venture Studio | Director, LMD2 Capadvisors
A New Era Needs a New Way to Build
India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is at an inflection point. As the nation approaches its vision of Viksit Bharat @2047, growth increasingly hinges on innovation, digital entrepreneurship, and scalable technology.
Yet despite a flourishing startup scene, recognised as the third-largest ecosystem in the world, many promising ventures still falter.
Why?
Because capital alone is not enough.
A lack of execution support, structured strategy, expert talent, and operational scaffolding create circumstances where most early-stage companies collapse.
If India truly wants to increase startup survival rates and build the next generation of FAANG-scale giants — not just in metros, but across Bharat — it needs more than investors. It needs builders. This is where venture studios come in.
What Is a Venture Studio and Why It’s Built for Now
A venture studio is a startup creation platform, a co-builder of startups. Unlike VCs or accelerators, they don’t passively wait for founders to submit ideas—they ideate, validate, and build companies from scratch.
Studios begin by identifying unmet market needs or emerging trends. Concepts are rigorously evaluated before capital is allocated. Once an idea passes validation, the studio incorporates a new company, recruits a founding team, and provides full-stack support.
- Globally, there are over 1000 venture studios as of 2023–24, according to Big Venture Studio Research 2024.
- Studio-born startups reach Series A nearly twice as fast than conventional startups, according to an article by Venture Studio Forum
In a landscape where speed and execution discipline matter more than bold ideas alone, venture studios institutionalize the act of company creation—designing businesses for success before they launch.
For India, where entrepreneurial ambition often outpaces infrastructure, this model isn’t just relevant. It’s essential.
Why Now: The Strategic Timing for Venture Studios
Three macro shifts are creating the perfect conditions for venture studios to thrive in India:
Rise of Bharat
Entrepreneurial energy is exploding beyond Tier-1 cities. Further, the FY24 economic survey revealed that over 45 per cent of new startups are now arising from these tier II and tier III cities. Yet these emerging founders often lack access to structured mentorship, startup know-how, and scalable product ecosystems. Studios fill that capability void.
Formalisation of MSMEs
India’s large MSMEs contribute nearly 30% of GDP, but struggle with digital transformation and growth strategies. While reforms like GST, TReDS, Udyam, ONDC, and digitisation of credit ecosystems are enabling legacy businesses to modernise, only 12% of MSMEs are fully digitalised, according to a study.
Studios can provide the handholding necessary to help scale these businesses through productisation, SaaS tools, and operational efficiency models.
Impact-Driven Capital
Indian and global investors are increasingly seeking purpose-aligned returns. Sectors like climate tech, agri-innovation are attracting attention, but require deep expertise and long gestation. Venture studios are structurally better suited to nurture these complex, high-impact ventures.
At this unique intersection, Venture studios can offer ideation, infrastructure, capital, and execution frameworks.
Innovations Venture Studio: Building Bharat from the Ground Up
At Innovations Venture Studio (IVS), we embed ourselves at the core of India’s next-gen ventures. We partner with founders, legacy businesses, domain experts, and institutions to create scalable ventures across sectors such as:
- Climate Tech & Green Energy
- MSME Modernisation & Manufacturing 2.0
- Deep Tech & Defence
- Agri-Innovation & Rural Digitisation
- Culturally Rooted D2C Brands
From investing in Pioneer Fabricators Pvt Ltd to enabling Cricstudio’s global retail expansion, we’ve demonstrated how studios can combine execution muscle with long-term capital strategies.
Conclusion: Studios Are the New Capital Infrastructure
India doesn’t just need more money—it needs better scaffolding. Venture studios offer a radical solution to India’s startup mortality rate by providing end-to-end execution infrastructure.
Think of them like IITs or IIMs for companies: not just feeding talent into the system, but reengineering the system itself.
With deep conviction and institutional support, Innovations Venture Studio is ready to lead this transformation—building Indian companies with capital backed by commitment.
Institutionalising the Model: Our Category-II AIF
To scale our impact, IVS is now launching a SEBI-registered Category-II AIF. The fund is designed to make venture-building an investible asset class and align with our philosophy of building Bharat-focused, impact-ready businesses.
“As a venture studio, we don’t chase unicorns — we build durable businesses that solve real problems. Through our upcoming AIF, we aim to institutionalise venture building as an asset class, offering LPs exposure to curated opportunities in India’s economic heartland.”
— Manish Khurana, Founder, Innovations Venture Studio
This fund will combine:
- Structured venture creation models
- Thematic exposure to climate, infra, and SME IPOs
- Tight governance, ESOP frameworks, and performance-linked models
We invite partnership from State governments and State Industrial Development bodies, Family offices and impact-oriented LPs, Policy think tanks, incubation partners, and ecosystem builders
The objective is simple: Create distributed innovation capacity across India.
No VCCircle journalist was involved in the creation/production of this content.
