Vertical AI apps
Domain workflows with measurable ROI
Applied AI and ML products, how investors separate durable businesses from thin wrappers, and what founders must prove.
AI / ML investors are hunting for leverage that survives model commoditization: proprietary data, evaluation excellence, workflow depth, distribution into a paying buyer, or systems that improve with use. India has deep engineering talent and a surge of AI products; the bar is rising fast on “why not just ChatGPT?”
Strong AI companies usually look vertical. A workflow with clear ROI, measurable accuracy, and switching costs beats a horizontal assistant with demos but no retention. Diligence goes deeper on technical method, eval harnesses, inference cost, and gross margins than a typical consumer pitch.
Founders should pitch the job, the baseline, and the lift. Show before/after for a named ICP, be honest about foundation-model dependency, and explain what becomes defensible over 18 months. Capital often funds data acquisition, GTM into enterprises, and product hardening, not only more GPUs for a vague platform vision.
India has deep engineering talent and a surge of AI products; the bar is rising fast on “why not just ChatGPT?
How this category usually shows up for Indian founders raising capital.
Pick the sub-sector narrative before you shortlist funds.
Domain workflows with measurable ROI
Eval, observability, orchestration, data
Embedded in existing systems of record
India-language and document-heavy use cases
Model + product teams with clear buyers
Bring the ones that match your model.
Core product truth
Gross margin reality
Usage beyond novelty
Enterprise ROI language
Does usage improve the model?
If enterprise GTM
Relative emphasis in partner conversations, directional, not a formula.
Use this before outreach, not after the first rejection.
Pitching AGI vibes instead of a workflow
Hiding human-in-the-loop costs
No baseline, so “90% accuracy” is meaningless
Enterprise logos that only ran a weekend pilot
Ignoring data rights and privacy early
Invest in 100 companies per year at pre-product stage and help them reach their next milestone
$25K – $250KInvest in founders from emerging countries building global businesses
$100K – $500K1818 Venture Capital backs exceptional early-stage founders building in India across SaaS, Consumer, FinTech, AI, and B2B, writing pre-seed and seed cheques in the $100k–$500k range as a micro VC with a strong India-first mandate.
$100K – $500K