We invest in exceptional people transforming how we live & work.

About

Arāya invests in pre-seed and seed start-ups globally.

We invest in visionary founders building the next generation platforms, products and solutions across Health, FinTech, Commerce & Future of Work. Over 50% of our investments today are in AI companies.

It’s our privilege to be a small part of founders’ journeys and in addition to capital, we provide unparalleled access to expertise, network, support and future funding from the get go. Arāya’s network of fund investors includes exited entrepreneurs who’ve “been there, done that,” family offices looking to follow-on in the companies we back and a deep network to support your growth across funding, customers and talent.

We also run ÁVA Investment Academy for Angels, the fastest growing angel investment academy for new angel and venture capital investors.

50%

of our portfolio have been in gender diverse teams

50%

of our portfolio are first-time founders

45%

of our portfolio have at least one ethnic minority co-founder

Our Portfolio

Our exceptional and diverse portfolio of mission-driven founders and companies, delivering next generation platforms, products and B2B technology solutions.

Hear from our founders

What Rupa offers her portfolio companies is on a different level to most investors I’ve worked with or invested alongside.
Nick Telson
Co-Founder Trumpet
In the negotiation phase of our acquisition, she played a pivotal role in our ability to achieve a successful exit.
Leila Thabet
Founder & CEO, Naytal
Rupa has a fantastic network across founders and investors. She has always been generous in making introductions to clients, funders and suppliers.
Alex Macdonald
Co-Founder & CEO, Sequel
Rupa was our first investor at pre-seed and has been more than an angel to us. More like a Guardian Angel. I think it’s safe to say that without Rupa’s experience, knowledge, and vast network, our first steps as entrepreneurs would have been much more challenging.
Diipa Buller-Khosla
Founder, Indē Wild
Alongside providing capital, Rupa has become an informal spokesperson, leveraging deep connections to support the development of our product, commercialisation, brand awareness and building relationships within the start-up ecosystem.
Simi Lindgren
Founder & CEO, Yuty
Arāya Ventures has been an amazing investor for Jude. Rupa is always first to respond to our investor updates with how she can support us.
Peony Li
Founder & CEO, Jude
Rupa is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to supporting her portfolio companies. She is constantly looking out for opportunities to help scale our venture, recruit top talent, and provide actionable and expert advice on a wide range of diverse challenges.
Stefany Nieto
Co-founder & COO, Gwella

Latest Portfolio News

Keeping up with the latest News about our portfolio companies.

Research Grid raises $6.48M to automate clinical trial admin

Amber Hill spent 14 years as a medical researcher. She didn’t mind the work, but there was one thing she consistently hated: administrative tasks.

“I think most people do, especially in research,” she told TechCrunch. She would rather be analyzing data or building relationships with patients, she said. “But I was spending so much time doing manual tasks that didn’t require any medical expertise. It’s a process that’s completely broken, and I knew it could be fixed.”

Bloom Money: the app breaking down barriers to financial inclusion

Bloom Money has blossomed into a vital platform for UK diaspora communities, helping users save, build credit, and manage their finances with confidence.

Meet the 17 startups founded by former Monzo employees

Europe’s later-stage fintechs continue to be a crucial training ground for the next generation of entrepreneurs and typically dominate lists of “founder factories”. According to a recent report by VC firm Accel and data platform Dealroom, Europe’s seventy fintech unicorns have produced 423 startups including Sync Savings founded by former employees.

Lapse Snaps Up $30 Million Round As An Anti-Social Media Photo App

Lapse, a three-year-old photo-sharing app, announced it raised $30 million in Series A funding from a group of prominent venture-capital firms and angel investors led by Greylock and DST Global Partners. Greylock general partner Jacob Andreou, a former Snap executive, joined Lapse’s board.

UKTN: Metaverse fashion storefront Emperia raises £8m Series A

Emperia, a London-base metaverse startup that develops virtual stores for fashion brands, has raised $10m (£8m) in a Series A funding round. Founded in 2019, Emperia creates virtual storefronts to simulate physical shopping experiences when purchasing art and fashion products. It has worked with brands including Lacoste, Dior Beauty and Sunglass Hut.

Evening Standard: Teaching that bridges tech’s gender gap

Anna Brailsford wants Code First Girls to become the world’s first edtech unicorn dedicated to women. She was inspired by the fact that the UK’s tech job market is projected to grow to six times its current value to be worth £30 billion by 2025. And the second was that only one in five people in the current tech workforce are women.

Sifted: Screenloop raises $7m to stop companies making bad hires

London-based hiring intelligence platform Screenloop — which offers candidate sourcing, interview analysis and reference automation — has raised $7m in seed funding led by Stride VC.

Arāya Investment Team

Rupa Popat

Founder & Managing Partner

Mitul Ruparelia

General Partner – Global Fund

Martin Carruthers

Investment Lead – Super Angel Fund

Hemant Grover

Venture Partner – Fintech

Rolf Groenewold

Venture Partner – Data & AI

Daljit Sandhu

Venture Partner – Governance & Ops

Maya Ghosn Bichara

Venture Partner – Health

ĀVA

Empowering the next generation of angel investors

Founder Resources

Resources to support and educate founders on their entrepreneurial journey.

Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

How to come up fresh, transformative and better ideas for your start-up.

How Venture Returns work and how much a founder should be giving away per round

The Founder-VC tussle over valuations is probably one of the more opaque aspects of the startup world. It’s often a classic case of one party not understanding where the other is coming from

Balancing the Art of Valuation with the Science of Dilution

Understanding the factors that help founders to maximise the valuation of their business and increase the propensity of new investors to come in at the highest possible valuation.

We’d love to hear from you.

If you’re a founder building a mission-driven company at pre-seed or seed, we’d love to hear from you.