The traditional role of VCs — scouting founders and writing cheques — is evolving rapidly as investors increasingly take on builder roles themselves. In what many are calling the build-it-yourself era, venture capitalists and fund managers are launching venture studios, entrepreneur-in-residence programmes, and co-creation platforms to design, develop, and launch startups right from inception.

This trend is particularly visible in India’s AI and tech ecosystem, where shorter product development cycles and market windows — fuelled by advancements in AI — are pushing investors to gain more control over outcomes. Firms like W Health Ventures are creating “company creation funds” that identify problems and construct businesses alongside founding teams, rather than just backing existing startups.

Multiple venture studios, including Think9, The Foundery, HyKr, VenturEdu and others, are catalysing ideas from concept to launch, often building teams and products from scratch rather than waiting for founders to appear. This hands-on model aims to speed up go-to-market performance and reduce early-stage risk.

AI’s role as a “productivity multiplier” has lowered the cost and time needed to build MVPs, prompting many VCs to blend investment capital with operational involvement. In this emerging paradigm, the line between investor and operator is blurring — and the next generation of startups may be built by capital, not just backed by it.