OVER THE PAST couple of years, India’s new-age technology companies entering the public markets, alongside the country’s broader startup growth story, have helped create a new class of wealth. India is now home to the world’s third-largest billionaire population, after the U.S. and China. Successful IPOs and private equity exits have also contributed to the creation of a pool of more than 19,000 ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs), defined as those with assets of over $30 million. Recent reports estimate that this number could rise to more than 25,000 by 2031.

This rapid creation of wealth is also reshaping the way India’s richest families invest. According to the “Julius Baer-EY 2026 Indian Family Office Playbook: Now, Next and Beyond” survey, family offices have doubled their allocation to private markets, with around 25% of their portfolios now directed towards alternative asset classes, compared with 15% earlier. Beyond real estate, technology is expected to be among the fastest-growing sectors in India, with its market size projected to expand from $283 billion currently to $500 billion by 2030.

India is home to nearly 300 family offices, ranging from generational-wealth families, where a new generation is taking the reins, to professionally managed family offices established by billionaires from the IT services industry. A new generation of young UHNWIs is entering the family-office ecosystem, bringing with it a greater appetite for calculated risk-taking.

“When I say calculated, I mean consciously, not blind risk-takers or something… within that risk phase, they [take] more calculated risks and are willing to invest in new technologies and ideas,” says Mustafa Motiwala, senior partner at Dentons Link Legal and head of its family offices practice.

TECH’S NEW SUITOR

It is not surprising that some of India’s leading family offices investing actively in technology-led companies have emerged from first-generation entrepreneurial families (see graphic). Kunal Shah’s QED Innovation Labs, for instance, has invested in companies such as Rapido and Zetwerk. Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan’s Pratithi Investments has put money in more than 100 startups, including Cult.fit, Nodwin Gaming and FirstCry. Azim Premji’s Premji Invest has seen stellar exits from early investments such as Myntra and, more recently, benefited from the Lenskart IPO, besides partial exits from investments such as iD Fresh Foods.

At the same time, the next generation of leaders from generational-wealth families is beginning to shape a different investment approach. Many of them have been educated at global institutions and are increasingly gravitating towards thematic and innovation-led businesses as strategic bets for the next leg of wealth creation.

Anirudh A. Damani, managing partner, Artha Venture Fund, and director, Artha India Ventures, the family office of veteran stock broker Ashok Damani, says when he returned to India from the U.S. in 2012, there was no intention of building a fund. His early investments were made using family capital and his own money from exits as an entrepreneur.

For Damani, the value of a technology investment lies in how effectively a company uses technology to solve a real problem. The investment potential is assessed through an internal scoring system called ‘SCOUT’. “S” stands for solving a real human problem, “C” for category-winning companies, “O” for optimised unit economics (unit economics needs to be positive and growing), “U” for an unmatched right to win for the founder, and “T” for technology-enabled rather than technology-first.

He points to investments such as OYO, which used technology to address the offline real estate business, and Purplle, which uses technology to solve distribution challenges.

For Artha, one of the biggest surprises in technology investing came with Karza Technologies, where it participated in the seed round in July 2017 and the pre-Series A round in December 2019. The SaaS company, which focusses on data and analytics for systemic fraud prevention, risk management, compliance and automation, delivered a 55x multiple on invested capital in the seed round, representing an IRR (internal rate of return) of 145%.

“The fact that a company would go from seed round to exit in four years, and would be super profitable at the time of exit in what was effectively a deeptech space selling to banks, was definitely an eye opener,” Damani says.

This experience, however, is not necessarily representative of the broader family office tryst with technology investments. Mohandas Pai, co-founder and chairman, Aarin Capital, and chairman, Manipal Global Education, believes many family office investments have not delivered great returns. Investors, he says, are realising that family-office investing is not about making quick money, but asset allocation. Recent exits and the growing number of tech IPOs, however, are beginning to offer better returns.

Aarin Capital, which is currently not making new investments and is in divestment mode, has made significant bets in edtech and enterprise applications, including an early investment in Byju’s that generated a fivefold return, as well as PharmEasy. Looking ahead, Pai sees AI, space, cloud and chip design as some of the “hot” sectors for family office investments.

“Many of the family offices are investing overseas in AI companies, especially in America, HyperCloud and all that, and they've done well,” Pai says. He also believes that setting up their own funds can give family offices greater access to seed and Series A opportunities. Increasingly, family offices are beginning to understand the value of this approach and are adopting it as part of their investment strategy.

Others, including Survam Partners (family office of Suman Kant Munjal), Sarcha Advisors (family office of Rohit Chanana), Sharrp Ventures (family office of Harsh Mariwala) and VSS Investco (family office of Vijay Shekhar Sharma), are also focussing on technology-led investments.

For single-family offices, the scope of investing has also broadened, particularly in the alternative investment space. Rather than limiting themselves to private credit or private equity funds, many are now looking at co-investment opportunities in sectors that align with their interests.

Vikas Satija, MD and CEO of Shriram Wealth, cites the example of a client looking to build a basket of AI and semiconductor startups. He fancies this a trend rather than a one-off request. With the Indian equity market underperforming and investors displaying a greater appetite for risk over longer investment horizons, family offices are becoming more willing to take concentrated thematic positions.

“I can tell you that today, no family office conversation gets over without talking about co-investment, or without talking about giving solutions in terms of creating a basket,” says Satija.

The relationship between family offices and technology-focussed venture funds is also evolving. Many thematic technology investors have long counted family offices among their limited partners. But beyond capital, entrepreneurial family offices can bring operating expertise, domain knowledge and networks to the table.

Endiya Partners, an early investor in Darwinbox, which recently entered the public markets, has been selective in choosing family office LPs. Sateesh Andra, managing partner at Endiya Partners, says the fund particularly values traditional entrepreneurs who have built companies of scale and subsequently established family offices.

“The reason to partner with a couple of those entrepreneurial investors who now have family offices is one, their domain understanding, and two, they themselves have created wealth through entrepreneurship. Domain knowledge, operating experience, and network would be three main reasons,” says Andra.

What lies ahead? The institutionalisation of single-family offices in India is still at an early stage, but the direction is positive, says Haigreve Khaitan, managing partner at Khaitan & Co. He sees a visible shift from passive wealth management to active wealth creation, with family offices exploring direct private investments, venture- and early-stage funding, pre-IPO opportunities, private credit, and thematic sectors such as climate, healthtech and fintech.

India’s domestic tax framework for family offices has remained relatively stable. Family offices continue to pay capital gains tax at applicable rates, with long-term investments subject to the concessional rate of 12.5%, plus applicable surcharge and cess, broadly in line with the rates applicable to foreign residents. “Considering that most family offices are set up in the form of limited liability partnerships, distribution of profits to partners are tax exempt. This makes a family office structure tax efficient without relying on tax incentives. The Indian trust structure also offers similar flexibility with taxes required to be paid only at the trust level; distributions to beneficiaries are not taxable in India,” Khaitan adds.

More recently, the GIFT City structure for onshore investments by foreign investors and offshore investments by Indian residents is being evaluated.

At a time when India’s growth story could readily absorb family office capital, Khaitan believes the country needs to build an ecosystem comparable with those in the U.S., Switzerland, and Singapore. These established family office centres benefit from a deep pool of CIOs, trustees, tax specialists, lawyers, investment professionals, administrators and technology providers.

For India to see more family offices being established, he believes greater predictability in the tax and regulatory treatment of trusts, LLPs, companies, holding vehicles and succession arrangements will be critical.

“These would encourage families to formalise their structuring rather than continue with fragmented personal ownership. Similarly, simplification and enhanced certainty around FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act), overseas investment, inbound investment, and cross-border succession would materially assist sophisticated family office structures,” he adds.

The evolution of India’s family offices, therefore, is no longer simply about preserving wealth across generations. As a new generation of entrepreneurs and heirs become more comfortable with technology, thematic investing and calculated risks, family offices are emerging as active participants in India’s next phase of wealth creation — providing capital, expertise, networks and, a direct stake in the country’s technology-led growth story.