Sharpening CMF’s vision, warming up customer intros.
Raveen sat with the Curious Men Films and Shifu Ventures teams to sharpen their vision, then personally warmed up customer intros from his Multiply Ventures network.
Own a piece of the studio building 100 profitable AI-native companies.
It takes a village to raise a company - and we're raising 100. That takes more than capital. So every seat on our cap table goes to a strategic investor, someone whose intros, expertise, and market access help take each company to $10M ARR.
What we've achieved so far.
We’re two years into a hundred-company mission. Five companies are already live, every one of them operationally break-even.
5
companies live today
$3M+
combined ARR across our companies
100%
of our companies are operationally break-even
Fractional
CMO
Led by Prateek Panda
3x Founder
Fractional
CPO
Led by Saurabh
Exited Founder
Fractional
CFO
Led by Amit Nahata
Ex-YC Founder
Fractional
CRO
Leader search underway.
Fractional
CHRO
Leader search underway.
Our current tribe of strategic investors.
Each Strategic Investor is helping us co-build our companies - some bring a specific expertise (GTM, product, hiring), others open markets they're native to (US, India, Canada).
Raveen Sastry
3x exited founder
Harshit Agarwal
Co-founder & CEO
Kesavan K
3x exited founder
Karthik Ramamoorthy
Exited to Zuora, $15M ARR
Lalit Kundu
YC founder
Hemant M
Engineering leader, ex Nutanix
Aravind S
Engineer, ex Airbnb & Cloudera
Sridhar Anumandla
Engineering Manager
Hitesh Gupta
Founding engineer
Srivatsava Daruru
Company acquired by ServiceNow
S. Sunil
VP Engineering
Srihari BT
Global VP Partnerships
Nageswara Rao M
15th engineer at Snapchat
Amit Koshal
Founder & CEO
and many more
Our investors are already in the trenches with our founders.
Our investors don’t just write cheques. They sit with our founders to sharpen ICP, open doors, and close enterprise deals. Going forward, all we ask is about an hour a month of that.
Built for the long game.
Great companies take years to build. A hundred of them take a decade. Shifu Ventures is for investors who think on that horizon.
Built for investors who
Not the right fit if you
Investment Horizon
Think in years, not months
Need short-term liquidity
Investor Type
Are individuals, family offices who love backing startups
Are an institution deploying a fund mandate
Engagement
Want to co-build with us, hands-on (about an hour a month)
Want passive cheque-writing only
Investment Amount
Write $25K to $250K cheques
Need to deploy a large, fund-scale allocation
How You Own It
Get equity in the studio itself, a slice of every company we build
Get LP units in a fund, with management fees and carry
Monthly investor updates.
A 5 to 7 min founder video on the 1st of every month - what shipped, what didn’t, and what we’re asking for.
From hello to first wire - ~14 days.
Four async-friendly steps. KYC and e-sign in-app via Venture OS. One signature, and you own a piece of every company we build.
01
Day 1-3
Intro call
30-min call. Fit check both ways.
02
Day 3-8
Sign one SAFE
Straight onto the studio cap table. KYC and e-sign in-app.
03
Day 8-12
First wire
$25K min, wired to Shifu Ventures.
04
Day 12-14
Onboarded on Venture OS
Calendar live. Asks routed by lane.
We've built companies to $10M ARR before.
Now we're co-building 100 of them together.
Sri took Almabase from 0 to $10M ARR, bootstrapped and profitable, while giving double-digit returns to its investors. A seasoned founder now co-building the next 100 the same way, alongside the founders who build them.
300+
Institutions served
~$10M
Annual revenue
5,200+
Attendees
11+
Cities visited
200+
B2B SaaS founders
Sri Maneru
Bootstrapped Almabase to $10M ARR.
Prateek Sethi
ex-Almabase | Leading Photon Legal from $700K to $2.5M ARR in 18 months
Prateek Panda
3x Founder | Co-founded Appknox | $100M+ in client exits
Amit Nahata
Ex-YC Founder | Led finance at VC-backed startups
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions investors ask first - fit, cheque, time, vehicle.
What kind of companies will I be investing in?
To start, mostly outcome-as-a-service and foundational companies - the kind we’re co-building now, like Photon Legal and Curious Men Films - plus fractional-CXO companies, wherever the market is clear and big enough to win. As the wins compound, we’ll take bigger, higher-risk bets - think space tech and hardware.
What’s the cheque size?
We’re raising from Indian-origin investors who think in years, not months, and want to be hands-on as we build. Cheques run $25K to $250K, all through a single SAFE. One cheque, and you own a piece of every company we co-build from here on.
What’s the time commitment, really?
About an hour a month. The intent is simple: the investors should be genuinely involved with the companies we co-build, and not just be passive investors.
What kind of help are you looking for from investors?
The companies we co-build sell high-value contracts to enterprise B2B customers.
The help we look for falls into three buckets:
- Warm intros - to potential customers and ICPs for these companies.
- Expertise on demand - when a company hits something in engineering, product, or GTM, investors with that depth step in.
- Market access - our investors span geographies; when a company enters a new market, the investor native to it helps open the door.
Needs will come up that don’t fit these buckets. When they do, our investors are our first call.
Are you a venture capital fund?
No - we’re a venture studio, not a fund. You come in directly on the cap table through a single SAFE: no fund, no AUM, no GP/LP, no management fee, no carry. You own a piece of what we build, not units in a vehicle.
What kind of investors are you looking for?
Indian-origin investors who love startups and think in years, not months - founders, operators, angels, and family offices who want to be involved in helping us co-build 100 companies.
How do companies get matched to my expertise?
Once you’re in, we onboard you to Venture OS and map your expertise. As the companies raise specific asks, Venture OS routes the relevant ones to you - so you only ever see where you can genuinely help.