South Park Commons, a Silicon Valley conglomerate of engineers, founders and researchers, is raising an India-specific fund within six months of entering the South Asian market in June, according to a Filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As of last week the exact size of the fund had yet to be determined, though the listing set a goal of $40 million.
Facebook was founded in South Park Commons in 2016 by Ruchi Sanghavi, the first female engineer Entered India Partnered with Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal last year. India Chapter was located in Bangalore First global step The platform has raised three funds for early-stage startups in the US
In 2018, Sanghvi was joined by her husband and business partner Aditya Agarwal, who previously served as VP of Engineering at Dropbox.
Unlike traditional VC funds and incubators like Y Combinator, South Park Commons looks for techies who have strong ideas but may not yet be ready to raise funds — at the “-1 to 0” stage. The company says in its FAQ. The collective operates two different programs: Community Membership for those not looking to raise capital, and Founder Fellowship, which supports founders with a total funding of $1 million ($400,000 investment after joining the program and an additional $600,000 commitment for subsequent venture rounds).
South Park Commons has approximately 175 active members and over 800 alumni, per Its website. About 80% are founders, the rest are domain experts and researchers.
In September, the team Dr to hire Angel One Executive Director and CBO Pratik Mehta is the founding partner of the India outpost.
Overall India is a challenging market for startups. country, home Over 149,000 startupsAccording to official data, there is Only 117 unicorns – Startups with a valuation of at least $1 billion It is convincing with VC funding worldwide Excel, Common CatalystsAnd Lightspeed To continue to be bullish on the Indian ecosystem, others prefer Softbank And Tiger Global It has been found challenging. Y combinator also chosen Only four startups from India across the winter and summer batches of 2024, down from 8 in 2023 and 47 in 2022.
Sanghvi and Aggarwal did not immediately respond to requests for comment.