Bengaluru : AI has emerged as the leading sector for India’s operator-founders for the first time, with one in four operator-led startups founded in 2025 building in AI, according to the second edition of The State of Operator-Led Startups, released today by RTP Global in collaboration with Tracxn. The findings point to a broader shift underway in India’s startup ecosystem, where experienced operators are increasingly choosing entrepreneurship to build the next generation of AI-native companies.
While operator-led startups accounted for less than 1% of all technology startups founded between 2023 and 2025, they attracted 11% of the total funding raised in 2025, highlighting the disproportionate investor conviction behind this founder cohort.
The report analyses 189 operator-founded technology startups established between 2023 and 2025 and tracks how this cohort is evolving in an increasingly selective funding environment. Operator-founders are defined as entrepreneurs who have previously spent years building and scaling businesses, leading teams, owning P&Ls, and navigating multiple phases of growth before starting companies of their own.
The rise of AI marks a notable shift in where these founders are placing their conviction. Of the 189 operator-founded startups in the study, 51 are AI companies. Vertical AI leads within that cohort, with 30 of the 51 AI companies building domain-specific solutions, followed by Horizontal AI (7), Developer Tools & AI Builders (4), Infrastructure (3) and others across Consumer AI, Agentic AI, and Enterprise AI.
While AI Solutions ranks first by startup count, it ranks fourth by funding raised, suggesting this is still an early-innings story, with capital yet to fully follow the founder movement.
The report highlights that this trend is closely linked to the changing economics of company building. As AI reduces product development timelines and lowers the cost of experimentation, founders with operational experience are increasingly able to combine domain knowledge with AI to build products around problems they have witnessed firsthand.
Beyond sector preferences, the report points to continued investor confidence in this cohort.
Funding into operator-led startups grew from $11.1 million in 2023 to $131.7 million in 2025, an increase of 11.9x over the three-year period. Seed-stage funding grew faster still, rising from $4.3 million to $75.2 million, a 17.5x increase, while the number of $1 million-plus rounds closed by operator-led startups rose from 2 to 21. In a year when broader tech startup formation contracted sharply, operator-led startups rebounded by 35% in 2025, pointing to a cohort entering entrepreneurship with intent.
The cohort progressed through funding stages with notable speed. Between 2023 and 2025, operator-led startups’ average seed round stood at $2.4 million, 1.7x higher than the $1.4 million average for the rest of India tech startups. At Series A, operator-led startups raised an average of $10.5 million, 1.25x higher than the $8.4 million average for the rest of India tech startup ecosystem.
Series A outcomes strengthened in this edition. The average Series A valuation for operator-led startups reached $53.3 million, up from the $38.5 million average recorded in the inaugural edition.
Beyond AI, operator-led startups raised approximately $186 million between 2023 and 2025. Fintech & Insurtech, Retail Tech & E-Commerce, and Transportation & Mobility emerged as the three largest sectors by funding, while AI Solutions, Fintech & Insurtech, and Enterprise Solutions & Software were the three largest sectors by startup creation.
Commenting on the findings, Nishit Garg, Partner, Asia Investment Team, RTP Global, said: “As RTP Global completes 15 years of investing in India, this research validates something we’ve observed for years. Operator-founders bring a distinct company-building muscle shaped by experience, scaling teams, navigating constraints and executing through multiple phases of growth. As AI fundamentally changes how products are built, the qualities that operators bring of pragmatism, execution focus and capital discipline become even more valuable. While this report highlights the growing momentum of operator-founders, our philosophy remains unchanged: we back exceptional founders, regardless of where they come from.”
Neha Singh, Co-founder and CEO, Tracxn, added: “India’s founder landscape has evolved significantly over the past decade. A new generation of operator-founders has emerged: professionals who spent years contributing to and growing businesses, and are now building their own. Experience has moved from being a soft signal to a genuine differentiator, and in a selective climate, that experience carries real weight with investors. That, in turn, helps strengthen the foundations of the startup ecosystem. It is also how an ecosystem renews itself, with each generation of companies training the next. This report looks closely at that cohort, and at what it signals for the next chapter of Indian entrepreneurship.”