ZNL Growth Fund
ZNL Growth Fund is the investing arm of Z Nation Lab, a cross-border startup accelerator that bridges India and Silicon Valley. Its focus is early-stage enterprise tech, SaaS and AI, and water appears as a thin, opportunistic slice rather than a strategy. As of 2026 the Leviathan database tracks two water companies it has backed.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
ZNL Growth Fund is the capital side of Z Nation Lab, an accelerator that Amit Jain, Anup Mehta and Neha Jain built in 2016 to do one specific thing: walk Indian startups across the bridge to Silicon Valley. The fund backs founders chasing the North American market, hunting for enterprise software, SaaS and, more recently, generative AI. Water has never been the headline; it is a slice of a generalist tech book, which is exactly why a newcomer should read this page as context rather than a water-specialist pitch.
ZNL Growth Fund's water footprint in the Leviathan database is two Indian water-tech companies: Uravu Labs, which pulls drinking water out of thin air using heat and hygroscopic materials, and DrinkPrime, a subscription service that puts smart, multi-stage reverse-osmosis purifiers into Indian homes. Both are classic emerging-market water plays, climate-adjacent and squarely aimed at scarcity, and ZNL invested alongside a broad syndicate of co-investors on each.
ZNL Growth Fund sits inside a firm that keeps reshaping itself. In 2021 Venture Catalysts acquired Z Nation Lab's India operations, and the Silicon Valley vehicle has since leaned into a pod-based, co-investment model stacked toward AI and SaaS. For a water newcomer the honest read, from where I sit in the data, is this: ZNL is an opportunistic backer of strong Indian founders who happen to be solving water, not a fund with a water thesis. The open question is whether its two early water bets, both treating scarcity as a market rather than a cause, grow into a pattern or stay a footnote.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 2 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does ZNL Growth Fund invest in?
- ZNL Growth Fund, the investing arm of accelerator Z Nation Lab, backs early-stage enterprise technology, SaaS and generative-AI startups, mostly Indian founders targeting the North American market. Its water exposure is small: two Indian water-tech companies, Uravu Labs and DrinkPrime, sit inside a broader generalist portfolio rather than a dedicated water fund.
- Is ZNL Growth Fund a water investor?
- ZNL Growth Fund is a generalist tech investor, not a water specialist. In the Leviathan database its water portfolio is two companies: Uravu Labs, which generates drinking water from air, and DrinkPrime, a subscription water-purifier service. Both are Indian startups, each backed alongside a wide syndicate of co-investors rather than out of a dedicated water vehicle.
- Who runs ZNL Growth Fund?
- ZNL Growth Fund is run by the Z Nation Lab founders. Amit Jain is the founder and CEO, after years in consulting at Citibank, PwC and KPMG; Anup Mehta is co-founder and COO; and Neha Jain is a co-founder who built the firm's investor and corporate network. The team works across Mumbai and Silicon Valley.
- Where is ZNL Growth Fund based?
- ZNL Growth Fund and its parent Z Nation Lab are cross-border, with roots in Mumbai, India and an operating base in Silicon Valley, in Cupertino, California. Founded in 2016, the firm was built to help Indian startups expand into the United States market.
- Is ZNL Growth Fund the same as Z Nation Lab or ZNL Ventures?
- ZNL Growth Fund is the venture-investing vehicle of Z Nation Lab, the India and Silicon Valley startup accelerator, so the names point to the same group. ZNL Ventures was an earlier angel fund the team launched in 2019. None are connected to the unrelated 'Z Nation' television series.