Until recently, “venture capital in India” was shorthand for consumer apps, rocket-stick digital adoption, and billion-user TAM slides. Payments, e-commerce, food delivery. Then came a different kind of story.
In just a few years, it has built four funds and is actively investing across the U.S., Europe, Southeast Asia, and, of course, India — and stitched together a thesis that quietly rewires how Indian talent gets backed.
They call it Global Indian Alpha.
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On paper, that phrase might sound like branding. In practice, it’s a structural edge.
➰ Consider LambdaTest. Seeded when it was just a concept, now $50M+ ARR with an AI-driven pivot executed in six months.
➰ Consider Atoa Payments. Inspired by UPI in India, applied to open banking in the UK, cutting merchant fees in half.
➰ Across the portfolio, 70+ companies spanning India, the US, and Europe.
None of this is about chasing hype cycles. It’s about building a platform that can diligence a founder in San Francisco on Monday and their co-founder in Bangalore on Tuesday — in person, not just on Zoom. Few funds can do that.
The Indian startup story most outsiders know, changing but is still largely domestic: consumer scale, policy tailwinds, IPO windows.
What Leo is showing is the second chapter: India not as a market, but as a global talent engine. 40M diaspora, second only to the U.S. in unicorn founder count, now building cross-border companies from day one.
This isn’t the cliché of “India is the next China.” It’s the less flashy, more durable reality: capital efficiency honed in Bangalore, scaled in Silicon Valley, monetized in London.
Venture capital usually talks in abstractions — “moats,” “founder love,” “operating edge.” What we’re seeing here is rarer: an actual playbook that converts India’s talent diaspora into measurable portfolio outcomes.
The punchline? In venture, as in software, the real narrative inversion doesn’t happen when you shout louder. It happens when you quietly build the muscle others haven’t yet noticed.
Great chatting with Shwetank Verma from Leo Capital.
Two of his quotes that stayed with me:
“The more you do this kind of cross-border investing, the more you build that cultural muscle.”
“We felt that there was nobody really playing for this global India play.”
Chapters in the podcast:
(00:00) Episode intro and report context: "Rethinking Venture Capital"
(01:15) Shwetank introduces Leo Capital and its global thesis
(02:25) Founders’ journey and transition from operators to VCs
(04:46) What differentiates Leo Capital from other VC funds
(07:29) Singapore structure and cross-border investment advantage
(09:24) Emotional journey of building and scaling four funds
(12:07) Portfolio learnings from failures and turnarounds
(14:48) Success stories: LambdaTest and October Payments
(18:38) Evolution of the Indian startup ecosystem
(24:12) Shifts in sector focus: from consumer/fintech to SaaS and deep tech
(27:04) Exit dynamics in India: IPOs and emerging M&A activity
(29:29) Global Indian Alpha: value of the diaspora
(34:30) What’s next for Leo Capital and long-term vision
Listen and enjoy!
