South Park Commons partners with Binny Bansal to expand into India.

South Park Commons (SPC), a technical community and early-stage venture fund, has announced its first international location in Bengaluru, partnering with Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal. Established in 2015 by Ruchi Sanghvi, Facebook's first female engineer and former VP of operations at Dropbox, SPC aims to support startup founders, technologists, and researchers in their early careers. Aditya Agarwal, former CTO of Dropbox, joined Sanghvi in founding the SPC Fund in 2018. SPC already has locations in San Francisco and New York City.

Agarwal noted the positive momentum in India, highlighting the country's matured startup ecosystem, which now supports the dense talent SPC needs. He emphasized that founders no longer need to move to the US to build world-class companies. SPC's model thrives on having a critical mass of top technical talent, successful local operators, and a vibrant entrepreneurial scene, all of which Bengaluru offers, positioning it as a potential leading technology hub.

SPC's early members have included future founders of companies like Anthropic and Imbue and early engineers from OpenAI. The goal is to foster a similar environment in India, leveraging SPC's reputation as a premier destination for early-stage AI researchers and founders. Sanghvi also mentioned that SPC is considering expanding to the UK.

According to a Moneycontrol report, SPC has closed its third fund without disclosing its size. The first fund, launched in 2018, was $50 million, followed by a $150 million second fund in 2020. SPC is also planning a fund dedicated to supporting emerging startups in India.