Ex-Peak XV trio raises Mettle; Fintechs go licence hunting - The Economic Times

Happy Thursday! Three former Peak XV MDs, who abruptly left the VC firm, are launching Mettle Capital to back Indian startups. This and more in today's ETtech Morning Dispatch.

Also in the letter:
■ Activate invests in ElevenLabs
■ Anthropic's Opus 4.7 in focus
■ Dhan's insurance play

Scoop: Ex-Peak XV trio launches Mettle Capital with $350–400 million target

(L-R) Ishaan Mittal, Ashish Agrawal and Tejeshwi Sharma at The ET Startup Awards 2025 in Bengaluru

Three former Peak XV Partners managing directors — Ashish Agrawal, Ishaan Mittal and Tejeshwi Sharma —

are launching Mettle Capital, a new venture fund

seeking $350–400 million to back Indian startups, according to people in the know.

Why it matters: The launch underscores the quickening churn at India's top VC firms, as a rush of IPOs and exits pushes investors to strike out on their own.

Fund details:

Mettle will focus on Series A and B deals, with selective seed bets, and is targeting 5–6 annually.
LP conversations are underway in the US, Europe and Asia, with a first close expected this quarter and deployment beginning by September–October.
Priority sectors include enterprise AI, deeptech and consumer internet.

The context: The trio's abrupt

departure from Peak XV in February

followed disagreements over economics, according to the fund's managing director and general partner

Shailendra Singh, who spoke to us

after the announcement.

Five

other partner-level exits

from the firm

have occurred

in the past year. Shailesh Lakhani and Harshjit Sethi have since launched Ambition Capital, targeting $250 million for early-stage investments across seed and Series A rounds, as

ET reported on March 16.

SoftBank logs $600 million paper loss on India-listed portfolio in March quarter

Masayoshi Son, CEO, SoftBank

SoftBank's latest earnings

were dominated by its OpenAI windfall

and a hard pivot to AI. The India story was more sobering.

Driving the news:

The Japanese investor's listed India holdings continued to weigh on the Vision Fund's public portfolio in the March quarter, accounting for roughly 15% of its mark-to-market losses.
Swiggy, Ola Electric, FirstCry, Meesho and Delhivery collectively incurred mark-to-market losses of over $700 million during the quarter.
These were partly offset by a roughly $100 million investment gain on Lenskart, taking SoftBank's net loss on its listed India holdings to around $600 million.
SoftBank's Vision Fund reported an investment loss of about $4.2 billion from listed portfolio companies for the quarter.

Also Read: SoftBank profit more than triples to $12 billion on OpenAI stake gains

Fintechs trade the wild west for regulatory licences

Fintech startups were

born to disrupt traditional financial services

. Today, many are lining up at the regulator's door to secure their own licences.

What's the matter: Large fintech players such as Paytm, PB Fintech and MobiKwik are pursuing multiple operational licences — including wallet, NBFC and stock broking licences. Others, such as SME lender Vayana, gold loan startup Indiagold and Rupeek, are doubling down on their NBFC strategy.

Why is this happening? Several forces are at work:

Regulatory nudge: In multiple cases, the RBI has pushed startups to become regulated entities themselves, rather than remain on the fringes.
Investors opening up: VC firms that once viewed licences as a constraint are now backing startups that seek regulatory oversight.
Rise of co-lending: A co-lending model that pairs startups with traditional NBFCs and banks in an 80:20 partnership is emerging as a capital-efficient way to scale.

Also Read:

Fintechs looking to AI to unlock opportunities, cost efficiencies

Activate picks stake in ElevenLabs in first global growth-stage AI bet

Aakrit Vaish, cofounder, Activate

Activate has made its first global growth-stage investment,

picking up a stake in ElevenLabs

, the New York-based voice AI company valued at $11 billion.

Tell me more: The investment, made through a separate vehicle backed by Activate's limited partners, marks a strategic shift for the $75 million fund, which has so far focused largely on early-stage AI startups.

Also Read: Aakrit Vaish’s fund Activate ties up with Nvidia to back AI startups

India play: As part of the partnership, Activate will serve as ElevenLabs' venture partner in India, helping expand enterprise adoption while enabling startups to build on its voice infrastructure. “The investment will help us support the voice AI startup ecosystem here,” cofounder Aakrit Vaish told us.

Also Read:

India is becoming ElevenLabs' key growth engine as enterprises scale voice AI: CEO Mati Staniszewski

Riding the wave:

India is already ElevenLabs' second-largest market by revenue, with strong uptake across sectors.
CEO Mati Staniszewski highlighted the pace of innovation among Indian developers.
The move comes amid rising competition from startups such as Murf AI and Gnani.ai, as global and local players race to capture the fast-growing voice AI market.

Also Read:

Voice AI firm ElevenLabs tops $500 million ARR; announces additional funding

Firms nudged to go for Anthropic's Opus 4.7 as Mythos AI stays elusive

Dario Amodei, CEO, Anthropic

Enterprises are increasingly

deploying Claude Opus 4.7

to plug cybersecurity gaps, while Mythos — its more powerful counterpart — remains out of reach for most.

Why Claude?

Experts estimate that Opus 4.7 delivers around 70–80% of Mythos' capabilities, which is sufficient for most enterprise use cases, while remaining commercially deployable with built-in safeguards.
Anthropic has intentionally limited Opus 4.7's cyber capabilities and added controls that detect and block high-risk queries.

Also Read:

India seeks fair access to Anthropic's Mythos for critical infrastructure security