Mela Ventures

Krishnakumar Natarajan and Partha DeSarkar, both co-founders of Mindtree, jointly run the firm as managing partners. They are the sole decision-makers on investments, drawing on their experience building a publicly listed IT services company from scratch to over $1 billion in revenue.

Mela Ventures operates as a venture capital firm. After initially deploying capital through personal vehicles, the partners formalized the structure with a debut fund in 2024, backed by external technology entrepreneurs and Indian family offices.

The firm targets seed and pre-Series A rounds, with initial checks ranging from $500,000 to $2 million. Mela Ventures reserves capital for follow-on investments as portfolio companies progress through early growth stages.

The firm avoids consumer internet, fintech, and hardware-heavy businesses. The partnership's mandate is concentrated on enterprise software, applied AI, and industrial technology — domains where the principals have operational and go-to-market expertise.

Natarajan and DeSarkar offer portfolio founders access to enterprise sales frameworks, engineering governance models, and talent networks built across Mindtree's three-decade operating history. The support is designed to help early-stage Indian B2B startups sell into global enterprise customers.

The firm invests primarily in India-headquartered technology companies, with a preference for teams building products for North American and European enterprise markets. The Bengaluru base reflects the concentration of B2B software talent in India.

Mela Ventures is not a corporate venture arm of Mindtree. It was founded independently by Krishnakumar Natarajan and Partha DeSarkar, both among the original co-founders of the IT services firm. The relationship is one of shared operational heritage rather than structural affiliation.