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JITO Incubation & Innovation Foundation
Rajat Mehta chairs JIIF, the 1,000-investor Jain network that has deployed INR 265+ crore into 110+ Indian startups since 2017.
JITO Incubation & Innovation Foundation
JITO Incubation & Innovation Foundation (JIIF) was formed in 2017 as the startup-investing arm of the Jain International Trade Organisation, a global business network representing Jain industrialists and professionals. Chairman Rajat Mehta leads the foundation alongside a leadership group drawn from JITO Apex, including president Kantilal Oswal and director incharge Rajesh Jain. The parent organization provides a built-in capital base: roughly 1,000 Jain investors participate through membership tiers, giving JIIF a sourcing advantage that conventional venture firms cannot replicate. JIIF runs three distinct investment channels. The JITO Incubation Centre incubates companies founded by members of the Jain community, having supported 55 startups to date. The JITO Angel Network writes checks into early-stage companies across sectors, while JITO Shark Angels operates as a more selective, higher-visibility vehicle for curated deals. The foundation's deployment pattern spans mobility, enterprise software, proptech, fintech and digital health. Portfolio names disclosed on its website include electric-mobility operator BluSmart, extended-reality hardware firm AjnaLens, home-finance platform HomeCapital, and geospatial analytics company Heliware. India is the primary market, though JITO USA provides an international pipeline for startup pitching. Total deployment has crossed INR 265 crore into more than 110 companies as of the foundation's most recent published figures. The investor base is structured around paid memberships — one-, two- and three-year tiers with differential fee-and-carry structures — creating a recurring capital commitment mechanism. Alongside the investment activities, JIIF runs a knowledge series, master classes, a Foundation Day event and an International Innovation Summit. The group's commercial footprint extends beyond venture: JITO House in Mumbai serves as a physical hub, and the Plusgold digital gold product operates as a separate consumer-facing asset. JIIF's structural differentiator is its embeddedness in a pre-existing diaspora business network. Where most angel networks must build membership from scratch, JIIF draws from JITO's global roster of Jain industrialists and traders, collapsing the typical distance between deal flow and capital. The foundation also ties directly into JITO's philanthropic architecture — including the JITO Administrative Training Foundation, JITO Awas Yojna and JITO Shraman Arogyam — creating a continuum from community welfare to for-profit startup investing that few other incubation platforms can claim.
General information
Firm type
Generalist
Year founded
2017
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
Asia
Country
India
City
Mumbai
Corporate office
5th floor, Plot no. A-56 Road No 1 MIDC Marol, Andheri East, Mumbai, 400093, India
Principals
Rajat Mehta
Chairman
Sukhraj B Nahar
Chairman of JITO Apex
Kantilal Oswal
President of JITO Apex
Rajesh Jain
Director Incharge
Bharat Oswal
Vice Chairman
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who makes investment decisions at JIIF?
Investment decisions are made within each of the three vehicles — JITO Incubation Centre, JITO Angel Network, and JITO Shark Angels — under the oversight of Chairman Rajat Mehta and Director Incharge Rajesh Jain. The Shark Angels platform, being more selective, operates with a higher degree of curation, while the Angel Network is designed to syndicate deals across the broader 1,000-member base. JIIF does not publicly disclose a separate investment committee.
How does JIIF source its deal flow?
Deal flow comes primarily from within the Jain International Trade Organisation network, which connects JIIF to Jain industrialists and professionals globally. JITO USA serves as a strategic partner for international deal sourcing, while the JITO Incubation Centre specifically scouts Jain-founded startups. The parent organization's density in Indian business hubs effectively turns community relationships into a proprietary sourcing channel.
Is JIIF a single family office or a venture firm?
Neither. JIIF is an angel network and incubation platform owned by JITO, a trade organization. It pools capital from roughly 1,000 Jain investors rather than a single family, though the collective functions with some of the club-deal intimacy of a family office. The foundation runs paid membership tiers with carry structures, which makes its economic model closer to an angel network than a traditional venture fund.
What is the connection between JIIF and the Jain International Trade Organisation?
JITO is the parent organization and sole owner of JIIF. The foundation was created in 2017 as JITO's dedicated startup-investing arm, and its leadership — including Chairman Rajat Mehta and Apex President Kantilal Oswal — is drawn from JITO's governance. The investment activity operates alongside JITO's philanthropic foundations, including JITO Administrative Training Foundation and JITO Shraman Arogyam.
Does JIIF invest only in Jain-founded companies?
The JITO Incubation Centre incubates Jain-founder startups specifically — 55 to date — but the JITO Angel Network and JITO Shark Angels invest more broadly across the Indian early-stage ecosystem. Portfolio companies BluSmart and AjnaLens, for example, were selected as growth-story features on JIIF's website, and JIIF has not stated they are Jain-founded.
What does membership cost, and how is carry structured?
JIIF publishes its fee schedule publicly. Annual membership costs INR 88,500 with no investment fees, while a two-year membership at INR 31,860 per year carries a 2.5% charge on each investment. A three-year tier costs INR 177,000 total with no per-investment fee. Members can upgrade from two to three years by paying the difference — roughly INR 145,140 — to avoid the 2.5% charge, provided no investments have been made yet.
How is JIIF's philanthropic activity separated from its investment operations?
The philanthropic work runs through separate JITO foundations — JITO Administrative Training Foundation, JITO Awas Yojna, JITO Sarvoday Foundation and JITO Shraman Arogyam — rather than through JIIF itself. However, JIIF's mandate explicitly links entrepreneurship to JITO's broader mission of socio-economic empowerment, making the boundary between for-profit incubation and community welfare more fluid than at a conventional asset manager.
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