Bengaluru: Veteran entrepreneur and investor Manav Garg has launched a new venture focused on agentic commerce, with Flipkart and Navi co-founder Sachin Bansal in advanced discussions to back the company. According to sources familiar with the matter, Bansal is looking to invest between $20 million and $30 million (approximately ₹190 crore to ₹280 crore) into the nascent startup. While Bansal’s commitment anchors the early discussions, Garg is aiming to raise a substantially larger initial corpus of around $100 million (roughly ₹950 crore). Talks with several other institutional investors are currently underway to close the remainder of the round, though the final structure and size will depend on incoming investor demand. Beyond infusing capital, Bansal is expected to take on an active strategic advisory role, leveraging his deep operational background in building Flipkart to guide the startup’s commerce roadmap. Meanwhile, Garg will steer the artificial intelligence and product architecture. This potential investment coincides with active fundraising at Bansal’s own fintech firm, Navi, which is reportedly in the process of raising around $40 million from Elevation Capital—coming just months after it secured $100 million from Prosus, an investor that also backs Garg’s vibe-coding startup, Emergent. Garg, who took over as the executive chairman of Emergent in June, will continue in his current capacity there. A representative for Emergent confirmed that Garg remains closely involved in shaping the company’s strategic direction. The launch highlights a broader shift in the Indian startup ecosystem, as founders and investors increasingly bet on AI-driven, autonomous shopping experiences to disrupt traditional e-commerce. Recently, Fireside Ventures co-founder Vinay Singh also stepped down from his role to build an agentic commerce venture. At the same time, top venture capital firms—including Peak XV Partners, Lightspeed, and General Catalyst—are actively scouting Indian startups building at the AI application layer, spanning autonomous agents, enterprise software, and AI-led biotech, moving focus beyond foundational models. Garg brings decades of enterprise and AI investing experience to the table. He founded enterprise SaaS firm Eka Software in 2004, which was later acquired by private equity firm STG in 2024 and merged with Quor Group. In 2021, he co-founded the AI-focused venture firm Together Fund alongside Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham, Shubham Gupta, and Lakshmi Narayanan, backing early-stage AI companies like Emergent, Composio, and RapidClaims. He is also a co-founder of the founder community SaaSBoomi, which has since rebranded as AIBoomi. Post navigation Mira-Bhayandar Development Projects Worth ₹87 Crore Stalled Over Salt Department Land Clearance
