The Maturity Premium: How Vintage Wisdom Is Powering India’s Most Experienced GPs

If capital markets are a mirror, then vintage years are the wrinkles that tell the real story.

For much of the last decade, Indian venture and private equity markets grew up fast. Deals were struck at breakneck speed. Funds mushroomed. First-time managers raised first-time funds from first-time LPs. For a while, vintage didn’t seem to matter because everything was going up.

But cycles, like character, reveal themselves over time.

The story today is one of experience asserting itself. Not just in the companies being funded, but in the managers doing the funding. The Indian private capital market is entering a new phase, one where manager maturity is becoming the real differentiator. The market has thinned. Capital is more selective. But those who remain are leaning into depth: experienced GPs, seasoned LPs, more rigorous underwriting, and a growing discipline around return expectations.

And that shift is visible in the numbers. According to the Crisil x Oister report No Ifs About AIFs (Jan 2025), early-stage funds delivered a pooled IRR of 26.86% for the years spanning FY13 to FY24, beating the BSE 250 Smallcap TRI by 4.29%. Growth and late-stage funds posted a pooled IRR of 23.61% over the same period, outperforming the BSE 200 TRI by 5.97%. While these returns span a broader range of vintages, including the earlier years of India’s private market buildout, their consistency over time reinforces the view that quality execution is enduring, not episodic.

Vintage by vintage, the Indian GP ecosystem is shifting from sprinters to marathoners. Fund managers have learned when to walk away from the hottest round, how to underwrite for cash flows instead of charisma, and why reserve planning can be the difference between strategic follow-through and value erosion.

It shows in how capital is deployed: smaller initial checks, longer diligence cycles, follow-ons only for performance. It shows in how companies are supported: board seats that guide, not create noise. And crucially, it shows in exit behavior: more secondary transactions, patient DPI strategies, and a greater willingness to return capital before chasing the next markup.

Vintage matters because experience compounds. And experience in private markets isn’t just about dealmaking. It’s about governance, pacing, judgment, and above all, resilience across cycles. The best funds of 2024 aren’t the newest or flashiest. They’re the ones led by managers on their third or fourth fund, professionals who’ve seen a full cycle, internalized its lessons, and built playbooks for durability, not drama.

Each fund cycle leaves behind more than a track record; it leaves behind pattern recognition, refined instincts, and a sharper sense of risk. GPs learn not just how to pick winners, but how to price patience. They stop chasing the fastest-growing company in every cohort and start backing the ones with durable economics, resilient founders, and real governance muscle. The second fund is rarely just a sequel, it’s a recalibration. By the third or fourth, conviction is no longer a projection; it’s a process. In private markets, experience becomes its own form of carry – invisible in the first fund, undeniable by the fourth.

India’s private capital ecosystem is still relatively young. But its leading fund managers are no longer guessing. They’re iterating. The story of the next decade will be written not just by high-growth companies, but by high-conviction managers who know when to sprint, when to pause, and when to deliver.

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