Analysis
Indian venture firms are increasingly setting up shop in Silicon Valley to stay close to the founders they've backed, as those founders themselves migrate to the US to chase AI opportunities, according to Newcomer. Several Indian VC firms have opened Bay Area offices and hired executives there in recent months.
Anil Advani, a Palo Alto-based lawyer who has spent about two decades helping Indian startups incorporate in the US, told Newcomer he now fields roughly a dozen calls a week from Indian founders asking about relocating -- more than triple the rate of two years ago. He attributes the surge mainly to the AI opportunity and founders wanting to learn the US market directly rather than from abroad.
The shift shows up in the deal data too: Indian VCs have made more than 100 investments in US-based companies over the past two years, per Newcomer's own calculation -- a notable reversal for an investor base historically built around India-focused, India-domiciled mandates. It mirrors a broader pattern this year of capital following AI talent and AI revenue wherever it concentrates, rather than where a fund's LPs happen to be based.
“He attributes the surge mainly to the AI opportunity and founders wanting to learn the US market directly rather than from abroad.”
For India-focused GPs, the calculus is increasingly obvious: the AI opportunity in the US dwarfs India's domestic market in the near term, and firms that stay purely India-based risk losing access to their own portfolio founders' next companies. For US-based VCs, it means new competition for early deals from firms with existing relationships and conviction built over years in the Indian startup ecosystem.
The article's reporting on specific named firms and investment amounts sits behind Newcomer's paywall; the figures here -- the dozen-calls-a-week trend and the 100-plus-investment count -- are what's independently confirmable from the public preview.
The pattern echoes earlier waves of diaspora-driven VC migration: Israeli and Chinese-American investors built similar Bay Area bridges in the 2000s and 2010s, often starting with a single partner relocating before a firm formalized a dedicated US fund. If Indian VC firms follow the same arc, the current trickle of Bay Area hires reads as an early signal rather than a peak, with dedicated US-focused funds likely following within a few years rather than months.
