Speciale Invest to launch ₹1,600 crore growth fund for deeptech investment

With Speciale Invest Growth Fund II, the firm will look to write larger cheques of $5 million-8 million, in addition to leading funding rounds. Over the course of the fund, it plans to invest in 12 to 15 companies. While Speciale hasn't announced the first close, the firm will do so sometime in 2026, co-founder and managing partner Vishesh Rajaram said.

While 60% of the fund will be for new investments, 40% is being allocated to follow-on rounds in new and old portfolio companies.

"These cheque sizes will also improve over the second and third year of the fund. It allows us that 3x leverage where we'll be able to do round sizes of up to $20 million with just two or three investors," Rajaram said.

“The capital gap for deeptech has moved from pre-seed, seed and Series A to the growth stage," Vijay Jacob, general partner at Speciale Invest, told Mint in an interview. He's the latest addition to the firm's investing team and will focus on its growth investments.

Speciale's first growth fund was launched in 2023 with a corpus of $25 million.

“With that fund, we validated a few things in the market: whether there was a need in the market, and leverage effect with regard to doing our own pro-ratas," said Rajaram. “Whether we led, co-led or just did our pro-rata allocations, it allowed companies to raise between two to five times more capital."

Pro-rata rights in venture capital give early investors the chance to maintain their initial level of ownership stake in a company during additional funding rounds.

Even with the new fund, Speciale will continue to invest in sectors it has traditionally looked at: space, advanced manufacturing, energy and health. In the next year, the fund expects that sectors such as quantum computing, semiconductor fabrication, space, and nuclear energy will see a lot of interest.

Larger funding rounds

Nuclear energy, especially, will have venture capital funds eyeing the sector carefully as the government debates opening it up to private players. Earlier this week, minister of state of science & technology Jitendra Singh introduced the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, 2025, in Parliament.

Deeptech has attracted significantly larger funding rounds this year, even in the early stages, a testament to how the sector has evolved over the past 24 months. Funding rounds of over $15 million-20 million at the early stage in the sector were unheard of just a few years ago.

And yet, this year alone, EKA Mobility raised $23 million in April from Enam Holdings, with the NIIF India-Japan Fund leading the company's $57 million Series A round. Optical fibre company Mixx Technologies raised $33 million in a Series A led by Singapore's ICM HPQC Fund with participation from TDK Ventures, SystemIQ Capital, AVITIC Innovation Fund, and others. Space tech hasn't been left out either, with space intelligence startup EtherealX raising $20 million in its Series A round.

In the coming year, experts said deeptech will see a lot of interest. Generalist funds, recognizing the significant alpha to be made on specialized IP-led startups, have been piling into the sector, boosting the availability of capital.

“Deeptech is no longer an early-stage-only story—it’s becoming a growth asset class, attracting larger cheques from investors seeking durable moats and long-term value creation," said Amit Nawka, partner, deals, at PwC India.

There is increased policy support too. The government's Research, Development and Innovation Scheme, a ₹1 trillion initiative spread across the next six years, is meant to boost private sector participation. "Given this, the private equity and venture capital funds are keen to invest in the sector, and in my view, we will witness more uptick in funding to enable growth of deeptech companies in 2026," said Raja Lahiri, partner and technology industry leader at Grant Thornton Bharat.

Changing the LP mix

Traditionally, Speciale has always raised funds from domestic high-income individuals and family offices, but given the size of its second growth fund, the firm is changing who it begins having conversations with.

“With early-stage rounds, investors or our limited partners generally take on a lot of the risk because the startup is still finding its legs, product-market-fit," said Rajaram. “The risk profile and return profile of a growth fund in deeptech is different."

For deeptech, growth rounds are more about scaling up the business because they've found their use-cases are generating revenue and now need capital to become a larger company. What's more, at the early stage, fund managers can pick up a larger stake in a startup, compared to when it looks for growth financing.

“Institutional investors will be a great fit for this fund, but we're not going to rule out family offices," Rajaram said. Over the course of its last four funds, Speciale has had more domestic limited partners.