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Our approach keeps founders at the heart of everything we do. We areConviction-led: We value independent decision-making and lead all our investments. Long-term partners: We stay fully committed to founders' vision, no matter how long it takes. Sector specialists: We each focus on specific sectors to build a deep, informed point of view that fuels our investment strategy and portfolio support. Transparent: We keep founders in the loop and prioritize honest communication, making us partners they never have to second-guess. Engaged: We believe in staying actively involved through meaningful board participation and functional support. Our journey started like many other startups – in a Bengaluru basement 2016 When we set out to raise our first fund, the Indian VC landscape was shaky at best. Investors were cautious, several foreign VC majors had left the ecosystem, and successful exits were hard to come by. Amidst skepticism about the Indian market, we defiantly believed that the "golden decade" of Indian technology was upon us. We saw an opportunity for VC 2.0 in India – one that was stage-focused, expertise-driven, and committed to prioritizing real growth alongside valuations. Undeterred by a tough fundraising climate, we knocked on 1,200 doors to raise Stellaris’ first fund. These early struggles shaped Stellaris’ culture, allowing us to fully resonate with the fundraising challenges faced by early-stage entrepreneurs. 2017 We launched our first fund of $90 million. From the outset, we established a principle of having specialists on our team, enabling us to tap into deep sector knowledge, spot promising opportunities, and provide tailored support to the companies we backed. Out of our 19 investments in our first fund, 9 surpassed a valuation of $100 million, with several others on track to achieve this milestone. 2021 We closed our second fund of $225M and backed 25 companies, many of which are poised to become the leaders of tomorrow. We also had our first significant exit in the portfolio when 6Sense, a US SaaS company, acquired Slintel, in which Stellaris was the first institutional investor. 2023 Our portfolio company, Mamaearth, which we backed at the Series A stage in 2018, successfully completed its IPO. 2024 We launched our third fund of $300M and are now managing over $600M in assets. We're ready to support the next wave of innovative businesses with the same grit and determination that brought us here.

Most successful founders agree that in their journey from 0 to 1 their mind swayed in all directions every single day. The ideas they generated needed validation before they could put those to execution. They were also aware that meaningful validation would come only from people who knew more, simply because they had been in the situation more and done more themselves. In fact, we strongly believe, seeking validation does not label a founder as incompetent. It instead suggests that the founder is open to accepting criticism, learning fast from feedback, fixing what needs fixing and getting better every single day. What do the founders really need? Having built several consumer brands ourselves and worked closely with over a hundred early-stage founders, we saw a clear need for the founders to scratch their perpetual itch but with the help of meaningful domain and industry experts. We realised, the time was apt to give back. With this in mind, was born Startup Sherpas - a mission to give back to the buzzing ecosystem of consumer goods and D2C startups in India. With the country’s D2C market set to explode beyond a $100 bn by 2025, backed by strong macroeconomic tailwinds, there isn’t a better time to build consumer businesses that can become behemoth brands in the future.

We come with a new perspective and a pioneering spirit. We’re ambitious; our goals surpass profit. We aspire to the kind of success in which everyone becomes a winner: the consumer, the company, the people and the planet. This is the future of business and we’ll all profit from it. We are the innovators of the investment industry. We turn small consumer businesses into bigger ones, and help big businesses become greater through investment, support and strategic innovation. If we believe in a brand, there’s nothing we won’t do to ensure its success. That includes sharing our offices, our insight, our network and our funds. We believe in joining brands for collaboration rather than competition, connecting our extraordinary network of companies to one another to create new and unprecedented ideas. We’re B Corp registered, which is hard to find in our line of work - and we’re driven by people first. Everything we do is about finding new ways to grow businesses so they better serve the consumer and the world we all share. WHAT MAKES TRUE DIFFERENT? We have two funds, but investment is only part of what we do. We accelerate startups, grow businesses and help industry giants exceed their potential by identifying opportunities for companies great and small to connect. This creates a collaborative community that gives our members an edge over the competition.

Cento Ventures is a venture capital firm specialised in emerging digital markets, primarily in Southeast Asia. We invest in the development of the consumer internet and its infrastructure. We strongly believe that the emerging digital markets of Southeast Asia are much underappreciated and is often misunderstood by global investment community, but contain multiple exciting opportunities to both realise investment return and deliver a positive impact on ASEAN societies and economies. Cento Ventures specialises in Series A and early B financing for consumer internet and related businesses, and focuses on supporting the entrepreneurs on course for Southeast Asia regional expansion. Cento Ventures team has a strong bias for contrarian thinking and deep value investing. We are fascinated with the future that the combination of digital economy and early-stage emerging markets holds.

BoxFund was founded by Roger Wade. Roger is a serial entrepreneur, the Founder and ex-CEO of Boxpark & Boxfresh. He is a creative entrepreneur and believes all brands should be special, he identifies those special brands/projects and adds values to them. He is passionate about people, ideas, and thinking outside the Box! What we do Boxfund specialises in early stage SEIS/EIS investment. Our CEO, Roger Wade has over 30 years operational experience in consumer brands. Specialising in setting up businesses that come from an idea, developing an idea into a viable business and preparing the business for exit. Roger believes great businesses start with the combination of people and ideas. He works with them, offering his knowledge, guidance and support throughout the journey,

At Kairon Capital, we were founded on a simple but overlooked truth: some of the most enduring consumer businesses in India aren’t chasing headlines, they’re quietly building profitability, product depth, and customer love long before they raise external capital. These are founder-led, disciplined companies that fall between the cracks of early-stage VC and late-stage growth equity, too real for theory, too early for scale capital. We built Kairon to back them. Our belief is that the right moment to invest isn’t when it’s trendy, it’s when clarity meets conviction. That’s the spirit behind our name, inspired by “Kairos,” the Greek concept of perfect timing. We don’t just bring capital. We bring alignment, operational thinking, and a founder-first partnership mindset. We exist to help high-potential consumer brands scale with purpose, and stay resilient long after the market cycles shift. At Kairon, we don’t chase what’s obvious. We partner with what endures. Our Vision To empower a new generation of consumer-focused ventures with timely capital, deep expertise, and unwavering partnership, championing innovations that shape better everyday experiences for millions.