Lightspeed Venture Partners has stepped up backing for deeptech with India Ascends, a startup accelerator to support entrepreneurs with up to $3 million in seed funding. The venture firm will back more investments in the sector in the coming year, a partner at Lightspeed said, at a time of growing awareness of the potential of core IP in sectors such as aerospace, defence, robotics and AI.
“We want to back companies being built out of India. We don't want founders eventually leaking out to the US, doing a PhD and starting a great company there,” said Hemant Mohapatra, partner at Lightspeed. “We'd like them to stay back and give them the opportunity to start a company.”
For Lightspeed, deeptech is familiar territory—it invested $450,000 cheque in near-space drone carrier company Kalam Labs in 2021, and wrote a $5 million seed cheque to hyperspectral imaging company Pixxel in 2020. It has been part of drone delivery company Airbound Aerospace's initial $1.7 million seed round in 2024, and was part of its latest $8.6 million fundraise in October this year.
“There's a gap right now at the intersection of very young founders building very R&D focused companies. There's very little capital and belief available at this intersection,” said Mohapatra. “We want to make sure that's not the case.”
Deeptech companies typically take a long time to show returns on investment, a key reason why generalist investors stay away from them in the early stages. However, 2025 has seen a change of thinking, which may accelerate as early-stage cheques near 2022 highs and investor interest picks up, in the backdrop of the December IPO of Aequs, a precision manufacturer of aerospace components.
India Ascends is Lightspeed's first accelerator platform in India. At a two-day programme, Lightspeed shortlists 12 early-stage startups run by founders under 25 from applicants and will provide between $200,000 to $3 million to the top three, alongside other investors.
The 12 companies will get access to $80,000 in credit towards cloud, artificial intelligence and software credits. Winners, on the other hand, alongside the funding, get access to $500,000 in compute credit as well as a “12-month strategic roadmap with guidance that fits their founding style, direct access to policymakers, global influencers, and industry veterans,” according to a release from the firm.
These compute credits come through Lightspeed's partnerships with portfolio foundational AI company Anthropic, AI chip startup Groq as well as hyperscalers like Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services.
Applications for the current cohort close on 12 January, with winners being announced on 6 February. However, Lightspeed wants to do at least one more next year and two every year going forward. The firm might even expand the number of companies it includes on the platform, depending on the quality of applications they see. “If future cohorts are amazing and we see 25 teams that are amazing, we'll find a way to expand the cohort, not just keep it at 12,” Mohapatra said.
Given that this is the firm's first accelerator, it is looking to tweak how the platform operates in the future. “We've designed it to be a two-day bootcamp. We'll take the feedback we get from the first cohort and adjust things accordingly,” Mohapatra explained. “Nothing is set. We just need to go serve the market where it wants to be served.”
Lightspeed is the latest global firm looking to back Indian deeptech through an accelerator programme. In October, global investment firms Accel and Prosus partnered to co-invest up to $1 million each in Atoms X, Accel's deeptech accelerator programme.