InnoVen Capital and Alteria Capital have provided Rs 25 crore (~$2.6m USD) of venture debt to Mesa School of Business, a Bengaluru-based business school, as part of a Rs 110 crore Series A package.
The package includes about Rs 85 crore in Series A equity co-led by Dharana Capital and existing investor Elevation Capital, while co-founder Ankit Agarwal told Inc42 the round valued Mesa at Rs 385 crore (~$40m USD) post-money. The company said the funds will be used to strengthen its leadership team, build capabilities in AI-led programme design and delivery, deepen partnerships with startups for projects, mentorship and job opportunities, and launch and scale new programmes. Terms of the debt, including pricing, tenor and warrants, were not disclosed.
Founded in 2023 by Agarwal, formerly of BCG and Urban Company, and Varun Limaye, formerly of Amazon, Mesa runs residential, on-campus programmes: a one-year postgraduate programme in startup leadership, a four-year undergraduate programme in business and entrepreneurship, and Forge, a one-year programme for fresh graduates. It has more than 550 students across the three programmes and does not employ full-time faculty, with startup founders and executives teaching.
Mesa previously raised Rs 34 crore in 2023 in a round led by Elevation Capital to launch its startup leadership programme. Angel investors in that round included CRED founder Kunal Shah, Meesho co-founder Vidit Aatrey and Urban Company co-founder Abhiraj Bhal.
Alteria Capital is a Mumbai-based venture debt firm founded by former InnoVen Capital executives and made the final close of its third venture debt fund at Rs 1,550 crore in March 2024. Inc42 reported that Alteria closed 31 deals in the September 2026 quarter and has deployed more than $750m across four funds, while InnoVen Capital backed 14 startups in the same quarter and has invested more than $1.9bn through over 770 debt transactions across Asia.