Novastar Partners India Investment AJVC LP Fund
Investment firm Novastar Partners has entered the Indian market, making an undisclosed commitment to A Junior VC (AJVC) as a limited partner. The move marks Novastar's maiden India bet.
AJVC, the pre-seed focused venture capital firm founded by Aviral Bhatnagar in 2024, closed its maiden fund at ₹200 Cr last year. The firm has made 32 investments to date, typically writing cheques of ₹1.5 Cr for 9% equity at the pre-seed or idea stage.
Novastar, founded by Dhruv Jhunjhunwala in 2025, operates a SEBI-registered category II alternative investment fund structured as a private equity fund-of-funds. Its mandate covers both LP commitments to leading VC funds and direct startup investments, focused on AI, consumer tech, financial services, healthcare, and deep tech.
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Novastar's managing partner Dhruv Jhunjhunwala cited AJVC's tech-led sourcing infrastructure, its programmatic investment approach, and Bhatnagar's early-stage network as the decisive factors behind the commitment.
"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," Jhunjhunwala said.
For global LPs and partners watching the India–Gulf corridor, the commitment signals institutional appetite for disciplined, operationally heavy pre-seed managers in India, a segment where fund-of-funds capital has historically been thin.
Novastar plans to allocate roughly 15% of its capital to early-stage strategies, with the majority directed toward growth-stage vehicles.
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