Download a copy of the shareholder letter here.

Info Edge, the parent company of Naukri, Shiksha, and Jeevansathi, has invested Rs 1,003 crore in 54 AI and deeptech startups since 2020, its founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani said in a letter to shareholders. As of March 31, 2026, the combined value of these investments stands at Rs 1,827 crore, translating into a 1.8x return multiple.

AI portfolio – 28 companies, Rs 614 crore deployed: As of FY26, Info Edge has invested Rs 614 crore across 28 AI startups. The fair market value of these investments currently stands at Rs 1,268 crore. 

This implies a 2.1x multiple on investment capital (MOIC) and an estimated gross internal rate of return (IRR) of 31%.

The table below shows Info Edge’s AI startup portfolio, which includes startups such as Gnani.ai, which recently released its Prisma v2.5 speech-to-text model, Attentive AI, and Aftershoot.

Deeptech portfolio – 30 startups, Rs 445 crore invested: Info Edge has invested Rs 445 crore in 30 deeptech companies since 2020. The portfolio now carries a fair value of Rs 559 crore, according to its latest shareholder letter. This translates into a 1.2x return multiple and a gross IRR of nearly 15%.

The deeptech portfolio includes startups operating across robotics, spacetech, semiconductors, electric mobility, and advanced manufacturing, including ePlane, Manastu Space, Unbox Robotics, Bharat Semi, and Matter Motors.

Other notable names in the company’s deeptech portfolio are Temple and LAT Aerospace, which are associated with Zomato co-founder Deepinder Goyal.

The table below shows Info Edge’s deeptech portfolio.

Of the 54 AI and deeptech startups that Info Edge has invested in to date, 52 are currently active and 28 have gone on to raise institutional follow-on funding rounds, according to the company’s shareholder letter.

Startup investments now worth over Rs 41,000 crore: Overall, Info Edge has invested roughly Rs 4,900 crore across 135 startups operating in sectors including quick commerce, food delivery, insurance aggregation, fintech, and gaming. The combined value of these investments now stands at about Rs 41,300 crore, implying an 8.4x return multiple and an estimated gross IRR of 33%.

Of the total amount, Rs 3,600 crore has been invested by Info Edge and its group companies, while the remaining capital came from external limited partners (LPs) in the Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) it manages.

Info Edge is one of the early backers of Zomato (now Eternal) and Policybazaar (PB Fintech). As of March 2025, the value of its shareholding in these two companies stood at Rs 31,500 crore.

Some tenets of Info Edge’s investment philosophy

• Meeting as many startups as possible: While Info Edge evaluates a few hundred companies every quarter, it invests in only three to four.
• Chasing category-defining outlier businesses: The company seeks businesses such as Zomato and Policybazaar that can generate massive returns over time, rather than focusing on short-term IRR growth.
• Entering early at disciplined valuations: Info Edge first invested in Zomato and Policybazaar at pre-money valuations of approximately Rs 9.4 crore and Rs 21 crore, respectively. The company argues that reasonably priced funding rounds help startups weather turbulent periods and avoid down rounds.
• Looking for indicators of strong businesses: These include team quality, an interesting unsolved problem, early operational traction, the potential to build intellectual property, product innovation, and emerging network effects.
• Staying invested in high-quality businesses for the long term: The company is also willing to increase its stake in proven winners. “When you reflect on the fact that we invested in Policybazaar in 2008 and in Zomato in 2010, you realise that this is the very cornerstone of what we do—we are in the business of investing early in high-quality businesses and staying invested for as long as they remain so,” said Bikhchandani.
• Limiting the size of fund corpuses and cheque sizes.
• Recognising that early-stage investing is both a risk and returns business: Info Edge emphasises portfolio diversification across sectors, stages, and time horizons to mitigate founder-, industry-, and stage-specific risks. Initial cheques are typically small, with larger investments following de-risking.
• Focusing on corporate governance: The company believes strong governance helps build customer and investor trust, attract high-quality talent, and earn a valuation premium.

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