An India-focused investment firm

A gateway to India’s next generation of AI and data-driven leaders.

Across consumer, healthcare and financial services.

The Bandra–Worli Sea Link across Mumbai’s waterfront
Mumbai, India
Founded2014
Asset classesPublic Equity & Private Equity
Based inIndia

The India opportunity

India’s next generation tech companies are where the most durable alpha is being generated.

Over a billion internet subscribers. Internet data among the cheapest in the world. A national digital infrastructure — Aadhaar, UPI, Account Aggregator — that gives businesses the rails to reach every Indian.

India’s complexity was never a lack of demand. It was always a question of how that demand could be accessed and served at scale. Technology, AI and data are transforming the way businesses address this opportunity, and we invest in companies leading that transformation.

Light falling across the architecture of a Delhi Metro station
Digital railsInfrastructure built for reach.
Internet subscribers1.1Bn

1,092.79 million subscribers
as of March 2026.

What we look for

Business models that become harder to beat as they grow.

We look for advantages that strengthen with scale and endure through cycles.

01

Effective use of data with AI/ML

Each transaction and interaction makes the product more useful, the targeting sharper, and customer relationships stronger.

02

Network effects

Each new participant makes the ecosystem more valuable for everyone else, creating a flywheel that is difficult to disrupt.

03

Strong brand

Trust improves conversion, supports retention, and gives leaders the ability to expand into adjacent categories.

A great hornbill flying over a green forest canopy

N. A. Nazeer · Photography credits

One forest. Completely known.

The Hornbill bird does not migrate. It finds its forest, stays, and spends a lifetime learning it. We chose the name in 2014 for exactly that reason. One forest. Completely known.

Manoj Thakur founded Hornbill Capital on a simple conviction: India was entering a generational period of technology-led transformation, creating an exceptional investment opportunity. Capturing it required not breadth, but depth.

Over a decade of investing across public and private markets has compounded into a view that is deep in private markets, rigorous in public ones, and sharpened by the interaction between the two.

The founding team has been working together for over a decade.

Read Our Story

How we invest

The same lens governs both.

We invest in companies that become harder to beat the larger they get, from growth-stage private companies to listed market leaders.

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Let’s talk.

We welcome conversations with institutional investors, family offices, and founders building the next generation of technology-led businesses in India.

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