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India internet & digital technology

We invest in India's internet & digital future.

Hornbill Capital is a dedicated Indian-focused investor, backing the companies building India's digital economy — in public and private markets. We focus where the growth is.

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2014 Founded

11 Years of Investing

13 Team Members

2 Investment Strategies

We don't migrate.
We stay rooted.

arrow_forward MUM · 2014

19.0760° N, 72.8777° E

One forest, completely known.

We have stayed in the same forest — internet and digital technology in India. Over a decade of investing across public and private markets has compounded into something genuinely difficult to replicate from scratch: a view that is wide and deep in private markets, rigorous in public ones, and sharpened by the interaction between the two.

What we do +

Preferred Business Models

How we think about businesses

Effective use of data

The strongest businesses are those that genuinely understand their customers better over time. Every transaction, query, and interaction feeds back into the system, refining product-market fit. This shows up in lower CAC, better targeting, and higher retention.

Network effects

In the best platforms, each new user makes the product more valuable for everyone else. As more buyers and sellers come on board, the ecosystem strengthens, creating a natural flywheel that leads to market leadership difficult to disrupt.

III

Strong brand

In categories like financial services, insurance, or education — where consumers are still making first-time decisions — trust is central. A strong brand drives conversion, retention, and efficient expansion into adjacent categories.

Portfolio

Companies we have backed.

Examples of the businesses we invest in.

Company Thesis Strategy

01 NSE Exchange monopoly Public arrow_outward 02 Nazara Gaming network effects Public arrow_outward 03 PhysicsWallah Edtech category brand Private arrow_outward 04 Dhan Capital markets fintech Private arrow_outward 05 KreditBee Embedded credit distribution Private arrow_outward

Strategy / 01

Public Equity

A concentrated, long-only fund investing in listed companies in India's internet and digital technology ecosystem. Eleven years of investing. Consistent alpha.

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Strategy / 02

Private Equity

We invest in growth and late-stage rounds in category-defining Indian companies in the private sector — the next generation of digital leaders.

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Our Conviction

We have stayed true to our strategy since 2015.

India's internet and digital technology sector has structural tailwinds that will run for decades.

Our work in private markets gives us an edge that most public market investors don't have — an early view of how the competitive landscape is evolving, well before it becomes visible in reported numbers.

Our Story

Named after a bird that never migrates.

The Hornbill bird doesn't 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 with a clear view: India's internet and digital economy was becoming one of the most significant investment opportunities in the world, and the way to invest in it well was not to be broad, but to go deep.

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Team

The people behind the portfolio.

The core team has worked together for over ten years without any change. In a business where people move constantly, we think that continuity is itself a form of conviction.

Manoj Thakur Jagdish Patel Monica Joshi Sahil Desai

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Perspectives

Hornbill's Journal

View all stories east

September 12, 2023

The SaaS Revolution: India's Product Playbook

How Indian founders are rewriting the global SaaS playbook from Chennai to San Francisco.

August 28, 2023

Fintech 2.0: Beyond Digital Payments

The next wave of innovation in credit and insurance as UPI matures.

July 15, 2023

Bridging Private and Public Markets

Our philosophy on navigating the crossover stage in high-growth companies.

Let's talk.

We welcome conversations with institutional investors, family offices, and founders building in the internet and technology space.

hello@hornbillcapital.com