Mars Shot Ventures
Venture capitalPre-Seed–Series A · 9 people tracked
Investment thesis
Mars Shot Ventures is an early-stage investing and advisory initiative started by people who helped build Razorpay from the ground up. Motivated by the goal of strengthening India's startup ecosystem toward a $10 trillion economy, the team leverages hands-on operating experience across product, design, sales, marketing, finance, operations, and strategy — having scaled an organization from under 10 to over 2,000 employees. The firm actively backs early-stage founders across SaaS, Consumer Internet, Fintech, D2C, Healthtech, and AI, aiming to give back to the startup community by sharing lessons learned.
Source: firm website, verified Aug 3, 2026.
Team · 9 people
from the firm's websiteHarshil Mathur co-founded Razorpay in 2014, where he serves as CEO after starting as an engineer and building the company's technology infrastructure. He advises startups on areas including organizational scaling, business execution, fundraising, and investor management.
Shashank Kumar co-founded Razorpay in 2014 and leads its technology, product, design, and marketing teams. He continues to write code and contribute to the codebase. He also advises startups on technology, growth, product, and scaling organizations.
Arjit Johri is a Vice President at Mars Shot Ventures, where he works closely with founders and supports portfolio companies. He previously held roles at Bharat Innovation Fund, CIIE.CO, and EY. He advises startups on fundraising, strategy, and growth.
Arpit Chug is the CFO of Razorpay and previously served as CFO of American Express India. He advises on finance topics including corporate governance, cashflow management, and budgeting.
Ayush Bansal has spent seven years at Razorpay, where he built and led teams across sales, operations, business analysis, and customer success. In his current role as Vice President and General Manager of Razorpay Capital, he leads the strategy team and handles investor relations, fundraising, and key organizational decisions. He also advises startups on business strategy, investor and team management, and building and scaling sales and operations.
Chetty Arun is the founding designer at Razorpay, where he serves as Head of Design for Payments & Capital. Over roughly six years he built and scaled a 50-person design team and leads the company's culture initiatives. He advises startups on design topics such as introducing design thinking, building a design function, and scaling organizational culture.
Sagar Saxena was the first employee of Razorpay and has worked across multiple areas of the business, including leading enterprise sales and business solutions teams. He currently heads the enterprise marketing team at Razorpay. He also advises startups on topics such as enterprise sales, team building, and business growth.
Shashank Mehta, known as SM, leads the neobanking business unit of Razorpay. Over six years at Razorpay he progressed from engineer to the company's first product manager and then general manager. He advises startups on product building, growth, organizational scaling, and culture.
Vishnu Acharya leads corporate strategy at Razorpay, where he handles corporate development, acquisitions, and strategic investments. He previously founded and ran his own startup and advises companies on fundraising and investor management.
Investments · 62 tracked
founders shown can be your intro pathSan Francisco, US
Vivek Prakash(Executive Officer, Director)Satyam Baranwal(Director)
Frequently asked questions
- What stage does Mars Shot Ventures invest at?
- Mars Shot Ventures invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A stages.
- What sectors does Mars Shot Ventures focus on?
- Mars Shot Ventures focuses on AI & Machine Learning, Consumer, Direct to Consumer, Fintech, Healthtech, SaaS.
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