Sheetal Bahl is a founding Partner of Merak Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund investing in B2B and emerging technology companies across India. Across Merak Fund I and growX Ventures Fund I (which the Merak team manages), Sheetal has built one of India’s most distinctive early-stage portfolios at the intersection of AI, DeepTech, and frontier hardware. Merak’s current portfolio spans the AI stack: from next-gen optical interconnects for AI compute infrastructure (LightSpeed Photonics) and AI-powered robotic vision for manufacturing (CynLr), to AI-native wearable hardware (NeoSapien), GenAI workflows for credit underwriting in lending (AbleCredit), AI voice agents for financial services (CredResolve), and AI for ecommerce intelligence (Helium). Sheetal backed DeepTech founders years before the category had a name; his early investments in Pixxel and Bellatrix Aerospace from growX Fund I were among the first institutional DeepTech bets in India’s VC ecosystem. He has articulated a distinctive framework for evaluating AI-led startups, coining the concept of ‘iceberg startups’ — companies that appear simple on the surface but are powered by deep, multi-layered AI capabilities underneath — as a lens for identifying genuine technical moats amid the current wave of AI positioning. Before venture capital, Sheetal helped set up the Everest Research Institute, spent several years in management consulting at Andersen Consulting/Accenture, and was part of the founding team of the credit cards business at ICICI. He holds a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay, and studied film at the New York Film Academy and sound at The New School — a range that informs his lateral approach to pattern recognition in technology investing.