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 solutions. According to the second edition of The State of Operator-Led Startups released by RTP Global in collaboration with market intelligence platform Tracxn, of the 189 operator-founded startups in the study, 51 are AI companies. Vertical AI leads within this 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 follow the founder movement fully.
Funding for startups founded by experienced business operators experienced a dramatic transformation between 2023 and 2025. According to the second edition of The State of Operator-Led Startups, funding for operator-led startups grew from $11.1 million in 2023 to $131.7 million in 2025, representing an increase of 11.9 times over the three-year period. The report also revealed that seed-stage investments in these companies increased from $4.3 million to $75.2 million, an increase of 17.5 times during the same timeframe. The report defines operator-founders as former CXOs and senior executives who have spent years scaling businesses, managing teams and overseeing profit-and-loss responsibilities before launching ventures of their own. Investor interest in operator-led ventures has strengthened sharply over the past three years, with the number of funding rounds exceeding $1 million rising from two in 2023 to 21 in 2025.
Despite their relatively small numbers, operator-led startups demonstrated significant market influence in 2025. As reported by RTP Global and Tracxn, these startups accounted for less than 1 per cent of all technology startups founded between 2023 and 2025 but attracted 11 per cent of the total funding raised in 2025, highlighting their disproportionate impact on the startup funding landscape. The number of funding rounds worth $1 million or more closed by operator-led startups rose dramatically from two to 21 during this period, indicating increased investor confidence in these experienced entrepreneurs. In a year when broader tech startup formation contracted sharply, operator-led startups rebounded by 35 per cent in 2025, pointing to a cohort entering entrepreneurship with intent.
The comprehensive study revealed significant differences in funding patterns between operator-led startups and the broader technology ecosystem. According to the report, operator-led startups achieved a funding surge of 11.9 times compared to 6.1 times for the broader tech ecosystem. In seed-stage funding specifically, operator-led startups experienced a surge of 17.5 times versus 2.9 times for the broader tech ecosystem. The data shows that e-commerce and retail-tech sectors led in operator-led startup funding with 50.7% share, followed by transportation and mobility at 29.5%. Beyond AI, operator-led startups raised approximately $186 million between 2023 and 2025, with Fintech & Insurtech, Retail Tech & E-Commerce, and Transportation & Mobility emerging as the three largest sectors by funding. Average seed round funding for operator-led startups reached $2.4 million compared to $1.4 million for the broader tech ecosystem, while average series A funding stood at $10.5 million versus $8.4 million respectively, with average series A valuations climbing to $53.3 million.
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." 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, enabling founders with operational experience to combine domain knowledge with AI to build products around problems they have witnessed firsthand.
