Insights
Long-form thinking on AI, India, and operator-led venture.
Essays from the partners, occasional reports, and founder resources we wish had existed when we were on the other side of the table.
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Latest
- Thesis·3 min read
Conviction Compounds
Why we named the fund Pratyaya — and what the word means once the easy years are over.
Pratik Ratnaparkhi · May 15, 2026→ - Thesis·3 min read
The Concentrated Portfolio Doctrine
Why a small fund with eighteen companies will out-attention a large fund with sixty — and why that is the only edge an operator-led fund actually has.
Pratyaya Capital · May 12, 2026→ - Thesis·3 min read
Saying No: The Hardest Sentence at Pre-Seed
Pre-seed founders die from yes, not from no. Why the first discipline of an early-stage company is the ability to refuse the eleven adjacent opportunities that will arrive in the first eighteen months.
Shantanu Deshpande · May 9, 2026→ - Macro·2 min read
India's Data Centre Boom: 158MW to 942MW
In a decade, India went from a footnote in APAC compute to the second-fastest-growing data-centre market on the continent. The implications for AI-native builders are larger than the headline number suggests.
Pratyaya Capital · May 8, 2026→ - Thesis·2 min read
Why we don't fund 'sector-agnostic'
If you can't tell us what kind of company you're building in one sentence, we are not the wrong fund for you. There just isn't a right fund.
Pratyaya Capital · May 8, 2026→ - Macro·3 min read
India1, India2, India3: Reading Indian Consumer Demand in 2026
The cleanest mental model for Indian consumer building right now. Why 140 million people carry two-thirds of discretionary spend — and what that does to your pricing, your channel mix, and your fundraise.
Pratyaya Capital · May 6, 2026→ - Macro·5 min read
The Indian Consumer-AI Stack 2026
A working map of where AI is genuinely re-shaping the unit economics of Indian consumer companies — and where it isn't.
Pratyaya Capital · May 5, 2026→ - Macro·3 min read
The UPI Compounding Effect
UPI is the most under-rated piece of public infrastructure in any major economy. The compounding effects — for fintech, for commerce, for AI-native services — are only now becoming legible.
Pratyaya Capital · May 4, 2026→ - Macro·3 min read
Vernacular Is The New SEO
The 2026 distribution advantage in Indian consumer tech is not better English copy. It is being legibly native in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and Bengali on every surface a user touches.
Anurag Anand · May 2, 2026→ - Founder Resources·4 min read
Pre-seed vs Seed in India 2026: what founders should expect
Cheque sizes, dilution, timelines, and the questions every Indian founder gets asked in 2026 — written for founders, not for funds.
Pratyaya Capital · May 2, 2026→ - Macro·3 min read
₹20 Billion and 18,000 GPUs
What India's national AI mission actually does — and what an early-stage AI founder should do about it. A practical read on policy that, for once, is large enough to matter.
Pratyaya Capital · Apr 30, 2026→ - Thesis·3 min read
What we look for in an agentic AI founder
Five traits we pattern-match for in the agentic AI deals we say yes to — and the three we are learning to filter out faster.
Pratik Ratnaparkhi · Apr 28, 2026→ - Macro·3 min read
The Cost of AI Talent in India, 2026
Salaries for senior AI engineers in India have moved more in the last 18 months than in the previous decade. The implications for founder dilution, runway, and hiring strategy are larger than most pitch decks admit.
Pratyaya Capital · Apr 26, 2026→ - Founder Resources·3 min read
The First 100 Days After Pre-Seed
A practical playbook for the hundred days that, in our experience, decide whether a pre-seed company reaches a fundable seed round. What to do each week, what to ignore, and what to commit to in writing.
Pratyaya Capital · Apr 22, 2026→ - Founder Resources·4 min read
Hiring Engineer #1
The second engineer (after the founding CTO) is, in our experience, the single most consequential hire of the first 18 months. A practical guide to who, when, how, and how much.
Pratyaya Capital · Apr 18, 2026→ - Founder Resources·3 min read
The Honest Cash Runway Calculator
Most pre-seed runway models are off by 25–40% in the founder's favour. A walk-through of the line items most founders under-count, and the version of the model we actually trust.
Rahul Naturis · Apr 14, 2026→ - Founder Resources·3 min read
Reading a Term Sheet Without a Lawyer in the Room
Every Indian early-stage founder will read a term sheet before they have access to a lawyer they trust. The thirteen clauses that actually matter, what to negotiate, and what to let go.
Pratyaya Capital · Apr 10, 2026→ - Reports·3 min read
The Operator's Index — H1 2026
Our first half-yearly read on operator-led venture in India. The 87 funds tracked, the cheque sizes that moved, the categories that won attention, and what we think it means for the second half of the year.
Pratyaya Capital · Apr 5, 2026→ - Reports·3 min read
Indian D2C 2026 — Where The Margins Move
A category-by-category margin teardown of Indian D2C in 2026. Where AI has compressed cost, where it hasn't, and where the next layer of operator-led brand-building is most likely to win.
Anurag Anand · Apr 1, 2026→ - Reports·3 min read
India's Agentic AI Map
A working map of the 47 Indian agentic AI companies we are tracking, the verticals where the first real winners are emerging, and the structural reasons agentic vertical software is — finally — a venture-scale Indian opportunity.
Pratyaya Capital · Mar 28, 2026→
The Operator’s Index
An annual report on how India’s best operators are building in the AI era.
Volume I drops this year. Get notified.