In 2000, before India had a venture capital industry worth speaking of, Mahesh launched Passionfund — one of the country's first angel investing vehicles. It was an experiment. Indian internet was small, exit routes were unclear, and most investors were not yet thinking about consumer software as a business.
Six years later, with a few early bets behind him, Mahesh co-founded Seedfund with Bharati Jacob. Seedfund became one of India's first institutionalised early-stage VC funds, writing cheques when the Indian startup ecosystem was still being assembled. The fund backed companies across consumer internet, mobile, media, and healthcare.
The most consequential bet was redBus — a small team in Bangalore trying to move bus ticket booking online. Mahesh backed them at seed stage in 2007. Six years later, Naspers acquired redBus for approximately $135 million. It was one of India's landmark startup exits at the time, and it arrived before most people thought Indian internet companies could produce exits at that scale.
Other notable outcomes: Geodesic, a mobile technology company, returned roughly 300x. CarWale became the dominant automotive classifieds platform. Chumbak grew into one of India's better-known direct-to-consumer lifestyle brands.
In 2015, Mahesh moved into space. He co-founded what became Satellize — building end-to-end sovereign space programs for governments that want to own their orbit rather than depend on foreign infrastructure. India's first private satellites launched in 2019, with further launches in 2020, 2021, and 2023.
Since moving to the UAE in 2022, Mahesh has been investing through AngelSpark, with a focus on founders in India, the Gulf, and MENA. The thesis has not changed much in twenty years: find a problem that matters, a team that can execute, and a market large enough to matter. The rest is patience.
Portfolio companies
A selection of companies backed through Seedfund and as an angel investor.
redBus
Travel Tech
2007
Carwale
Automotive
2007
Chumbak
D2C / Lifestyle
2010
Doolally
F&B
2006
Saidas
SaaS
2025
What makes him write a cheque
A real problem
Not an app. Not a pivot. A problem a specific group of people genuinely have, that existing solutions are not solving well. The problem comes first. The technology is the method. This sounds obvious. It eliminates roughly 80% of pitches.
A founder who can change their mind
The product at exit almost never looks like the product at seed. In over 50 investments, that has been the constant. He backs founders who treat the plan as a starting hypothesis, not a destination — and who can tell the difference between a pivot and giving up.
A market that can support a real outcome
India has a billion consumers and the Gulf has serious purchasing power. Neither automatically produces a large market. He looks for founders who can say specifically who will pay, why they will pay, and how many of them there are. The Excel answer is not the same as that answer.
Related writing
Indian VC is dead. Long live the Indian VC
A VC eulogised Indian venture capital at a NASSCOM conference in Bangalore in 2001. Dearly departed. A wonderful time. The question: was the eulogist right about the death, right about what would come after — or wrong about both?
Lessons from redBus: Backing India's Biggest Exit
When we backed redBus at Seedfund in 2007, nobody believed online bus ticketing could work in India. Here's the story of how they proved everyone wrong.
Pitch a startup
Mahesh is actively investing through AngelSpark in India, the UAE, and MENA. If you are raising a seed round, get in touch with a short description of the problem you are solving and why now.