India’s startup funding market is seeing fresh interest in two very different areas. Campus Fund has reserved up to $10 million for young founders who choose to build their companies from India. At the same time, Asiana Fund and Taiwan-based JC Capital have launched a Rs. 1,000 crore fund for advanced manufacturing and deep-tech businesses.

Both announcements focus on Indian opportunities, but their targets are different. Campus Fund is looking for young founders at the earliest stage. The Asiana-JC Capital fund is aimed at companies that have already built a business and are ready to grow.

Campus Fund’s $10 million Build In India plan

Campus Fund has earmarked up to $10 million from its $100 million third fund for its Build In India initiative. The money will support students, recent graduates and college dropouts from any country who want to develop their startups in India. The fund says founders will be considered regardless of their university, nationality or industry. ETEntrepreneur reported that the initiative will provide early pre-seed funding.

Richa Bajpai is the founder and chief executive of Campus Fund.

The firm began its first fund in July 2020 and has focused mainly on student-led startups and young entrepreneurs. Its third fund is expected to invest in around 60 to 80 startups over four years, according to ET.

The purpose is simple. A student founder may have a promising idea but lack money to build a first product, test it with customers or hire a small team. Campus Fund’s investment can help turn that idea into an early business.

The plan also reflects a growing trend of overseas-educated founders returning to India. Some are building products for Indian customers, while others see India as a lower-cost base from which they can expand globally.

Asiana Fund and JC Capital’s Rs. 1,000 crore fund

Asiana Fund and JC Capital have created the Asiana-JCC Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Fund. The fund has a base corpus of Rs. 600 crore and can grow to Rs. 1,000 crore through an additional greenshoe option. It plans to invest in around 12 to 15 companies, mainly at the Series A and Series B stages. BS reported that the fund will focus on growth-stage Indian companies.

Its target areas include semiconductors, robotics, computing, advanced materials, sustainability, aerospace and defence. These are businesses that usually need more time, equipment and technical expertise than ordinary software startups.

Asiana Fund was founded in 2017 by Jalaj Dani, the co-promoter of Asian Paints. JC Capital was established in Taiwan in 2019 by Jim Chen.

The partnership combines Asiana’s India-focused network with JC Capital’s links to Taiwan’s semiconductor and technology ecosystem. The fund’s official website says it will also help portfolio companies with technology partnerships, supply chains, manufacturing expansion and overseas markets. Asiana Fund lists the fund size at about $105 million.

For example, a company developing industrial robots may use the investment to improve its technology, set up production, work with a large manufacturer and sell in international markets. This is the kind of long-term growth these investors appear to be targeting.

How the two funds differ

The two funds are not direct competitors in the usual sense. Campus Fund works mostly at the idea and pre-seed stage, while Asiana-JC Capital is looking at companies that have reached the Series A or Series B stage.

Campus Fund is built around young founders and early experiments. The Asiana-JC fund is designed for businesses that need larger cheques to scale manufacturing, protect intellectual property and enter global supply chains. Other early-stage venture funds and deep-tech investors may compete for the same founders, but the investment stages are clearly different.

Conclusion and key takeaways

These announcements show that India’s startup funding story is becoming broader. Young founders are receiving support at the idea stage, while engineering-heavy companies are attracting larger growth capital.

Campus Fund’s plan may encourage more students and overseas founders to build from India. The Asiana-JC Capital fund could help Indian deep-tech companies move from research and prototypes to commercial production.

Key takeaways –

• Campus Fund has set aside up to $10 million for its Build In India initiative.
• The initiative targets students, recent graduates and college dropouts.
• Asiana Fund and JC Capital have launched a fund with a potential size of Rs. 1,000 crore.
• The larger fund will focus on semiconductors, manufacturing, robotics, defence and sustainability.
• The two funds serve different stages of the startup journey.

Baby-care quick commerce startup Kiddo has raised Rs.12.5 crore in a pre-seed round led by Campus Fund. The round also included participation from strategic angel investors.

Founded in 2025 by Ankit Kawatra, Kiddo is building a quick-commerce platform focused only on babies and young kids.

The company is currently live in parts of Delhi NCR and promises delivery of baby and kids’ products in around 30 minutes.

What Kiddo is trying to solve

Parents often need baby products suddenly. It could be diapers at night, baby wipes before travel, a feeding bottle, rash cream, toys, clothes or age-specific food items. Regular e-commerce may take a day or two, while general quick-commerce apps may not always have the right baby product or size.

Kiddo wants to solve this gap with a focused baby-care shopping app. Instead of treating baby products as one small category, it is building the whole experience around parents and children.

The startup says it offers more than 30,000 curated products across essentials, fashion and other kids’ categories. This matters because parents do not only want speed. They also want confidence that the product is safe, relevant and suitable for their child’s age.

Why the funding matters

As per UNI, the fresh Rs.12.5 crore funding will be used for customer acquisition, dark store expansion across Delhi NCR, technology development, product improvement and team building.

Dark stores are small local warehouses built only for fast delivery. They are not normal retail shops. For a baby-care quick-commerce startup, these stores are important because parents expect urgent delivery and correct product availability.

For example, if a parent in Gurugram needs diapers for a six-month-old baby, the app must show the right size, the right brand and deliver quickly. If the product is wrong or delayed, trust can break very fast.

Founder background

Ankit Kawatra is not new to operations-heavy businesses. Before Kiddo, he founded Feeding India, a food-recovery network that later became part of Zomato in 2019. He also worked at Zomato, where he handled large-scale operations, including food relief work during the COVID period.

This background is important because quick commerce is not only an app business. It needs strong operations, supply planning, delivery control and customer trust.

Startup aim

Kiddo’s aim is to become the default baby-care platform for urban Indian parents. The company is starting with Delhi NCR and may expand to more cities after strengthening its model.

Its focus is not just fast delivery. It wants to add life-stage intelligence, which means showing products based on the child’s age and parent needs. For a new parent, this can reduce confusion while buying.

Competitors and market challenge

Kiddo will compete with FirstCry, Hopscotch, Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and local baby stores. FirstCry is strong in baby and kids’ products, while quick-commerce platforms are strong in fast delivery.

Kiddo’s challenge will be to combine both strengths – deep baby-care selection and quick delivery. It will also need to maintain product quality, correct sizing, brand trust and reliable availability.