South Park Commons (SPC), a community of founders and engineers that also operates an early-stage venture fund, has opened an outpost in Bengaluru, marking its first international location outside the US. The fund, named after a neighborhood in San Francisco, is entering India in collaboration with Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal.
SPC was founded in 2016 by Ruchi Sanghvi and Aditya Agarwal. Sanghvi, the first woman engineer at Facebook, and Agarwal, former CTO at Dropbox, launched SPC as a collective of engineers, founders, and researchers. The fund has since raised two funds to support entrepreneurs with very early-stage ideas.
“Our long-term goal at SPC has always been to bring our philosophy of ‘negative one to zero’ phase to anywhere where there is talent, ambition, and a hunger to explore new ground and build companies. India is perhaps the most dynamic and interesting country for technology entrepreneurship in the world right now,” Agarwal stated.
Differentiating SPC from entities like Y Combinator, Sanghvi noted, “A lot of people who come to SPC come even before they have an idea or that they want to start a company. This is quite different than a YC or any other incubator, where the currency of your status is how much money you have raised.”
SPC-India aims to build on the community’s reputation as a top destination for early-stage AI researchers and founders. The earliest members of SPC included future founders from companies like Anthropic and Imbue, as well as early engineers from OpenAI. SPC intends to replicate this emphasis in India.
“I am excited to partner with Ruchi and Aditya to help the next generation of Indian founders navigate the -1 to 0 stage of their startup journey,” Bansal said.
