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    Founder’s Corner

    Investor Matching

    Investors chosen by what they do, not what they say.

    Which investors fit what you are building. Not a list of everyone who writes cheques. Our team runs the match on SRF’s own platform as part of your raise, and you get a ranked list with the evidence behind every name.

    Talk to us about your raise

    As of October 2026

    The record it runs on

    SRF runs its own investor intelligence platform: 1,800+ investor firms, 2,700+ startups and 3,400+ funding rounds, recorded by the week, going back to December 2020. Nearly six years of Indian venture activity, working for your raise.

    • 1,800+

      investor firms profiled

    • 1,700+

      of them with recorded deal history

    • 2,700+

      startups tracked

    • 3,400+

      funding rounds recorded

    • 8,100+

      investor participations recorded

    • 2,100+

      of those participations as the lead investor

    • 260+

      weeks of deals recorded

    • 60%

      of rounds had two or more investors

    • 8,200+

      co-investor relationships mapped

    • 17

      investors in the largest single syndicate

    • 12

      macro sectors at the top of the ladder

    • 480

      sector categories across five levels

    How it is built

    • Week by weekEvery week's Indian funding announcements are collected, and each deal is researched and recorded on its own: what the startup makes, how it earns, how it delivers, who it sells to, its stage, the round size and every investor in the round.
    • One record per investor per roundA round with five investors is five records, each marked lead or not. That is what lets the platform say who backs whom, who leads, and who invests alongside whom.
    • One sector ladder for everyoneEvery startup, and every investor's stated focus, sits on the same five-level ladder. A match can be as broad as fintech or as narrow as one niche.
    • Governed, never ad hocEvery change to the core data passes a preview, a health check and a single all-or-nothing write with an audit record. A mistyped sector or stage is refused, not stored.

    One sector ladder, five levels deep

    1. 12Macro sectors
    2. 57Sectors
    3. 311Industries
    4. 90Sub-industries
    5. 10Niches

    480 categories in all, under 12 macro sectors: Technology, Financial Services, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Consumer & Retail, Industrial & Manufacturing, Energy & Climate, Agriculture & Food, Logistics & Transportation, Education, Media & Entertainment, Infrastructure & Real Assets, Aerospace & Defense.

    How a match is scored

    Investors are scored on up to twelve dimensions of fit, and on how actively each is investing, then ranked. Three ideas shape how the evidence is read.

    Behaviour outranks words

    For every investor the engine holds two kinds of evidence: what it has actually backed, deal by deal, and what it says it wants. The stated preference is a floor, and real deals raise it.

    An investor that has repeatedly backed companies like yours ranks highly even if its website never mentions your sector. One that only claims an interest, with no deals to show for it, cannot reach the top on words alone.

    Recent deals count more

    An investor active in your space last year outranks one that was active five years ago. Old deals count for less with every year that passes.

    Volume, not proportion

    The engine counts how many matching deals an investor has done, so a large generalist fund with several deals in your space is not hidden behind a small specialist with one.

    The factors, in order of importance

    1. Product fitDoes this investor back products like yours? The heaviest factor, and it always stays so.
    2. Sector fitCredited by how deep the match goes, from the broad sector down to the niche.
    3. Business-model fitHow the company makes money.
    4. Recent activityInvestors who are actively deploying rank above dormant ones.
    5. Stage and cheque sizeA cheque outside the usual range fades the score. It does not cut the investor off.
    6. Lead behaviourWhen you need a lead: the share of rounds the investor has actually led, beside what it says.
    7. The finer grainBusiness segment, how the product is delivered, tech intensity, deal structure, verticals and consumer segment.

    Each match then lands in one of four bands: Strong, Good, Possible or Long-shot.

    Rules fixed by automated tests

    • Product fit always stays the most important factor.
    • A firm with hundreds of deals elsewhere can never outrank one that has backed companies like yours.
    • An investor that passed on one company is never marked down for another. A past no is kept as history, never used as a penalty.
    • Leaving the core fields blank never improves anyone's score.

    They are tests, not intentions: a change that breaks one fails the test suite.

    Every match comes with its evidence

    A score alone is not trusted here. The engine attaches four things to every investor it recommends, so the reasoning can be checked before the first email goes out.

    With every recommended investor

    • A one-line reasonThe three strongest reasons for the match, and the number of recent deals behind it.
    • The evidenceUp to five of the investor's own deals that match your raise, newest and most relevant first, each showing which dimensions matched and whether the investor led.
    • The full breakdownFor every dimension, how much it counted and why, including whether the score came from real deals or only from stated preferences.
    • An honest coverage lineHow many firms were searched, and across how many weeks of deals, stated with every result.
    “Only declared research matched: no backing deals for this thesis.”
    The engine’s own words. It is what the reason line reads when an investor’s stated interest is the only thing that matched, so a thin match is never dressed up as a strong one.

    Who invests alongside whom

    8,200+ co-investor relationships mapped. 60% of the rounds on record had two or more investors, so more often than not the firm that says yes does not arrive alone.

    Co-investors
    Who each investor has backed rounds with, drawn from every recorded pair of investors in the same round.
    House and vehicle
    A fund house and its separate funds are linked as house and vehicle, never merged into one name.
    Warm paths
    For the people at a firm, the paths to them through connectors and through current or past colleagues.

    30+

    Investors we work with directly

    The platform is the record. Beside it sit the relationships: the investors SRF works with directly, a circle that keeps widening. A match tells you who fits. Where we already know the firm, that is how the conversation starts.

    The work we do with investors

    Deal sourcing
    Companies from the founders we work with, put in front of the investors they fit.
    Due diligence
    Financial, operational and governance assessments before a cheque is written.
    After the investment
    Reporting and governance support for the companies in a portfolio.
    How we work with investors