India’s conviction-led seed initiative

Backing women founder-CEOs building category-defining companies.
CXXO is Kalaari Capital’s initiative backing companies led by women CEOs with the same rigour we apply to every bet we make.
What's Your Pitch

CXXO at a glance

Fund Size
$10M
Portfolio Companies
10
Sectors of Focus
Agnostic
Average Cheque Size
500k to $1 M

Why CXXO

Exists

The funding gap isn't a social problem. It's market inefficiency - and inefficiencies create alpha.
Capital Efficiency Arbitrage
Women-led companies generate 78 cents per dollar invested vs. 31 cents for male-led companies. The market hasn't priced this in.
Underserved 
= Undervalued
Sectors where women founders concentrate — health, fintech, edtech — are the fastest-growing verticals in India's startup ecosystem.
Network Intelligence
Portfolio referrals convert at 20–30× the rate of cold applications. CXXO has built the deepest women-founder network in Indian VC.
First-Mover Conviction
While other funds announce women-focused initiatives post-hoc, CXXO has been deploying capital since inception with a dedicated thesis.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with founders who had everything except someone willing to go first. The idea was there. The conviction was there. What was missing was a cheque that said: I believe this before it’s obvious.


That’s what CXXO is. Not a programme or platform, but a signal that we looked at these founders and decided they are bets we’re excited to take.”
Vani Kola
Managing Director, Kalaari Capital
“I’ve spent a lot of time with founders who had everything except someone willing to go first. The idea was there. The conviction was there. What was missing was a cheque that said: I believe this before it’s obvious.



That’s what CXXO is. Not a programme or platform, but a signal that we looked at these founders and decided they are bets we’re excited to take.”
Vani Kola
Managing Director, Kalaari Capital
“I’ve spent a lot of time with founders who had everything except someone willing to go first. The idea was there. The conviction was there. What was missing was a cheque that said: I believe this before it’s obvio...
Vani Kola
Managing Director, Kalaari Capital

The

Platform

Capital
Dedicated early-stage funding for ideas backed by conviction, deployment and follow-on capacity
Network
Access to Kalaari's portfolio ecosystem, LP network, and the highest converting referral pipeline in Indian VC.
Builder Support
Operating playbooks, GTM strategy, hiring frameworks, and hands-on partner involvement.

How we

Evaluate

We evaluate every company the same way:
Is there a real business here, and is this the team to build it?
Seed stage: 
Initial cohorts, retention that holds, a revenue model that makes sense before it needs to scale.
Series A and beyond: 
We want to see that the unit economics are directionally right and that growth isn’t masking a leaky bucket.
Across both:
Founders with a structural understanding of their market: Why now, why them, and how defensibility compounds.
Sectors
Deeptech, consumer tech, fintech, healthtech, AI, D2C and emerging categories where we have pattern recognition.
Geography:
Built in India, for India, with global ambition

Next

Category leaders

Category

leaders

Nikkitha Shankar
SuperBryn
Neethu Mariam Joy
SuperBryn
Samhita R
Resilience AI
Ridhi Kanoria Doongursee
LXME
Priti Rathi Gupta
LXME
Priyanka Gera
Aeria
Neha Bagaria
Herkey
Malini Adapureddy
Deconstruct
Radhika Ghai
Kindlife
Manasa Garemella
Kindlife
Diksha Pande
Samosa Party
Prerna Jhunjhunwala
Creative Galileo
Load More

Insight from

the

frontline

Insights from the

frontlines

Explore

Why We Invested in SuperBryn

SuperBryn aims to become the default layer for Voice AI applications – to help teams build smarter and more reliable agents.
BLOG

It Takes a Village

At CXXO, we believe every woman should claim her full share of opportunity, capital, and voice.
NEWSLETTER

How kindlife Is Replacing Beauty Guesswork with AI-Powered Discovery for Gen Z India

Growing up, beauty advice in India came from one place: your mother, your grandmother, or the aunty next door. Besan for the face. Coconut oil for the hair. Haldi before the wedding.
NEWS

“How do we serve pets with dignity, care, and respect?”

No Ceiling Stories
 – Neha Singh

Neha built , an innovative data platform for private markets. Built a data empire. In under a decade, led her startup to an IPO
No

Ceiling

previous year highlights
“There are invisible and unwritten gender barriers which we all feel in terms of access to capital, access to fair opportunities, equal opportunities and all this is something which leads to the glass ceiling.”
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Chairperson Biocon Group
"There is one challenge on AI for all. There is one challenge on AI for youth. And this is Women in AI. That should show the intent of the government to promote women in tech, giving them a separate platform, a separate challenge."
Anna Roy
Principal Economic Adviser Niti aayog
"If you have some healthcare technology, diagnostic technology, which does not include data from Indian women — even if Indian women use it, it would not be adequate. It would probably throw up much more false results, and it won't work as effectively for them."

Kalika Bali

Senior Principal Researcher and Microsoft Research India
"How do we create more seats at the table, and even if needed, how do we create more tables where women can join?"
Vani Kola
Managing Director, Kalaari Capital
"As women, we have lower confidence in ourselves. We lose our own confidence if somebody says it cannot be done. So many people have told me it won't work, but believe in yourself, believe in your idea."
Geetha Manjunath
Managing Director Niramai Health Analytix

Building something that changes the market?

CXXO backs founders who see what others miss. If that's you, we want to hear from you.
What's Your Pitch

Everything you

need to know

At what stage of a startup does CXXO invest in?
What sectors are we focused on?
What does the evaluation process look like?
What information do I need to submit?
What happens after I pitch?
How is CXXO different from Kalaari Capital’s main fund?

Subscribe to
CXXO Front Cover

Join founders, investors, and operators tracking the CXXO thesis. One email a month, no fluff.

Subscribe to Newsletter

Join the

CXXO Community

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.