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Investment firm Novastar Partners has made its maiden India bet by investing an undisclosed sum in Aviral Bhatnagar-led venture capital fund A Junior VC (AJVC), becoming a limited partner (LP) for the firm. Founded in 2024 by Bhatnagar, AJVC is a pre-seed focused investment firm that closed its maiden fund at ₹200 Cr last year. It has made 32 investments to date, backing early-stage startups like Iztri, Handy Panda, Mindcase, among others. Backing startups at the pre-seed or idea stage, AJVC typically invests ₹1.5 Cr for 9% equity. The firm then works closely with founders to build out the business by helping refine product, optimising hiring and people strategy, assisting in sales and marketing, while also aiding in finance, legal and compliance operations. Investment firm Novastar, which is building a private equity fund-of-funds, intends to support AJVC and its portfolio companies by facilitating follow-on funding rounds and providing networking opportunities as well as direct operational assistance. AJVC’s investment strategy, its tech-led sourcing infrastructure, and Bhatnagar’s network in the early-stage investment ecosystem were the key reasons driving Novastar’s decision to back the firm, Novastar’s managing partner Dhruv Jhunjhunwala shared with Inc42. “We believe a programmatic approach, like the one that AJVC is pursuing, where you build a sufficiently broad portfolio of a number of companies while maintaining discipline around selection, can be one of the most effective ways of investing at the pre-seed stage,” he added. Founded by Jhunjhunwala in 2025, Novastar operates a SEBI-registered category II alternative investment fund (AIF) that aims to back leading venture capital funds as a LP, as well as making direct startup investments. The fund focuses on sectors like AI, consumer tech, financial services, healthcare, and deep tech. It also aims to diversify its bets across the startup life cycle with plans to allocate around 15% of its capital to early stage strategies, the majority towards growth stage strategies, and a small share towards late stage strategies including secondaries and continuation funds. Jhunjhunwala declined to share details around how much capital Novastar has raised till now or the capital it plans to deploy. “In the medium term, we would love to announce our next set of investments that would be across funds and companies. But right now, our focus is on continuing to build the right portfolio and partnering with the right set of fund managers,” he said.
document fetched 2026-09-16 02:57 · canonical https://inc42.com/buzz/novastar-partners-backs-pre-seed-stage-focused-vc-firm-ajvc