Deeptech startups snagged $324 million in first four months of the year
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The R&D-focused and innovation-anchored deeptech ecosystem, contrary to perception, is lately drawing more money—and deals. Venture Intelligence data showed investments in deeptech doubled in the first four months of 2025 to $324 million across 35 deals, compared with $156 million in the same period last year that saw 21 such commitments.Some of the biggest deeptech deals in 2025 included a $90 million investment in Netradyne , an AI-based fleet management platform, by Qualcomm Ventures, Point72 Ventures and others; $54 million in SpotDraft, an AI-based contract management firm, from Trident Capital and others; $35 million investment in predictive maintenance service platform Infinite Uptime by Tiger Global, GSR Ventures and $21 million in Tonbo Imaging, which offers imaging and sensor systems to military, by Florintree and others.Deeptech broadly refers to technology-based innovation that hinges on advanced scientific and engineering research, which require significant expertise, capital and time.While union minister Piyush Goyal 's comment on the lack of a deeptech ecosystem certainly triggered the conversation, deeptech ecosystem has been seeing increasing interest for a while now.Krishnakumar Natarajan, managing partner, Mela Ventures, said that unlike a few years ago, deeptech is seeing more commercial use cases making the sector attractive.Ganapathy Subramaniam, managing partner, Yali Capital, which has Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan as an advisor, said that there are more companies that are being created in deeptech now than before. This is formed by people from premier institutions and executives from multinational companies, who are choosing to stay back in the country.Vinod Shankar, co-founder, Java Capital, a deeptech fund, said that recent times have seen several government initiatives that attempt to grow the deeptech ecosystem in the country such as Rs 10,000 crore fund of funds to invest in deeptech and other initiatives that support semiconductors, space, and biotech.All these are resulting in increased competition for deeptech deals in India.A partner from a deeptech fund told ET that they are now competing with larger players in early stage deeptech deals and are closing more as well. 'This year alone we have closed 4-5 deals at a higher valuation. We used to do 7-8 per year,' the investor said.Java Capital's Shankar said that initial investment for deeptech companies is now upwards of $4-5 million now, compared to $2-3 million a couple of years ago.Co-investing is also gaining momentum. For instance, Mela Ventures has invested along with Blume in Optimized ElectroTech, a defence technology startup.Mela's Natarajan said that, unlike consumer technology startups, the model of investment for deeptech needs to be different as it takes a longer time to commercialise. 'If it is a 3–5-year horizon for consumer technology startups, in deeptech it requires 8-10 years. They also need intense involvement, hand-holding and mentoring to help them through the process,' he explained.In addition, one of the key challenges is also market creation. Natarajan explained that in many cases these startups are catering to the market that either does not exist or require firms to adopt a newer way. While funds like them are helping companies to reach the commercialisation stage, there is a need for intervention to drive market adoption. 'Like how the government offered subsidies for EVs (electric vehicles) there must be some incentives for customers to adopt deeptech solutions,' he added.
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