India’s Venture Capital Landscape Is No Longer What It Used To Be
Fundamentally, the rules of the game have changed for startup investors in India. Archana Balasubramanian, founding partner at Agama Law Associates, breaks down exactly how and why, drawing from data across 1,115 private transactions in the first half of 2026.
Rarely has a market pivoted this sharply. Institutional investors are now pouring capital into late-stage, highly compliant software enterprises in Mumbai and Bangalore, steering clear of the early-stage speculative bets that once defined the ecosystem. High-profile failures like Go Mechanic and Byju’s left investors nursing serious losses, and SEBI has responded by becoming aggressively proactive about enforcement, stress-testing valuations and scrutinizing IPO filings through technology.
What does this mean for the next generation of Indian founders? The honest answer is complicated. Compliance is no longer optional, it is the price of admission. Yet the opportunity here is real: professionals who can guide companies through India’s demanding multi-regulator environment are more valuable than ever. Cautionary tales like Paytm and Coffee Day remind us that even strong products cannot survive poor governance. (The council’s role, Balasparanian notes, has expanded significantly in this environment.)
Clearly, this shift is both a warning and an invitation.
Our Guest
Archana Balasubramanian
Archana Balasubramanian is a Partner at Agama Law Associates with over 17 years of experience in corporate, commercial and transactions law, advising clients across sectors including manufacturing, logistics, media, pharmaceuticals, financial services, real estate and technology. She is known for a result-oriented, commercially-minded approach, and her practice spans corporate advisory, M&A, dispute strategy, data protection, and private client work — including succession planning and advisory for HNIs, entrepreneurs and family offices. Her M&A practice, built over nearly two decades, covers investments, mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and structural collaborations, and she has been recognised as one of India’s top lawyers by Forbes Legal Powerlist, India Business Law Journal and Legal Era. She is also a frequent commentator in outlets such as the Economic Times, Mint and Business Standard on topics ranging from IPOs and venture capital to regulatory and dealmaking trends.
Our Host
Ajay Shamdasani
Ajay Shamdasani is a veteran writer, editor and researcher based in Hong Kong. He holds an AB in history and government from Ripon College, JD and MIPCT degrees from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce Law School, and an LLM in financial regulation from the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago-Kent College of Law.
His 15-year long career as a financial and legal journalist began as deputy editor of A Plus magazine – the journal of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants. From there, he assumed the helm of Macau Business magazine as its editor-in-chief, and later, joined Asialaw magazine as its deputy editor.
More recently, he spent close to seven years as a senior correspondent with Thomson Reuters’ subscription-based trade-wire service Regulatory Intelligence/Compliance Complete (previously called Complinet) in Hong Kong. While there, he covered regulatory developments in that city, as well as Singapore, India and South Korea.
