Speciale Invest Launches Rs1,400-Crore Growth Fund To Back Deep-Tech Startups

Deep-tech-focused venture capital firm Speciale Invest has launched a Rs 1,400 crore Growth Fund II to invest in Series A and later-stage deep-tech startups over the next two years, signalling growing investor confidence in India’s science- and engineering-led companies.

The new fund will back startups that have achieved technical validation and are moving towards commercial scale, with investments across advanced manufacturing, space technologies, climate and energy, health and biosciences, and artificial intelligence. Unlike early-stage capital, the growth fund is aimed at helping deep-tech firms bridge the capital-intensive phase between proof-of-concept and revenue generation.

“Deep-tech has never been about chasing short-term cycles,” said Vishesh Rajaram, founding partner at Speciale Invest. “It is about building institutions that can compound value over decades, often starting with long timelines and science risk.” He added that specialist investors are essential to underwrite these risks, given the extended gestation periods typical of deep-tech ventures.

The fund launch comes amid increasing policy support for the sector. On November 3, the Centre announced a Rs 1 lakh crore Research Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme Fund to catalyse private-sector investment in research-led businesses. While the impact of the scheme will become clearer once capital deployment begins, Vijay Jacob, general partner at Speciale Invest, said the initiative has already generated strong interest across the ecosystem.

Rajaram said India’s deep-tech landscape has improved materially over the past decade, driven by targeted policy interventions such as the Indian Space Policy, the Green Hydrogen Mission, production-linked incentive schemes, and sector-specific programmes including the Indian Semiconductor Mission and the National Quantum Mission.

Founded in 2017, Speciale Invest started as a seed-stage investor and has backed several prominent deep-tech startups, including Agnikul Cosmos, GalaxEye, ePlane Company, Ultraviolette, CynLr and QNu Labs. The launch of Growth Fund II marks a strategic push by the firm to support portfolio companies and new investments as they scale towards commercialisation.