Team Startupcity

• Speciale Invest has raised Rs 600 crore for its third fund, surpassing its Rs 500 crore target, to back early-stage deep-tech startups in India across sectors like space, AI, energy, and advanced manufacturing.
• The fund aims to invest in 18-20 startups over four years, focusing on sovereign and cutting-edge technologies critical for India’s economic resilience and national security.
• Speciale Invest is positioned as one of India’s largest pre-seed deep-tech investors, supporting founders through long development cycles and helping navigate policy, certification, and global market challenges.

Venture capital firm Speciale Invest has raised its third fund at Rs 600 crore, exceeding its target of Rs 500 crore as investor demand increases for early-stage deep-technology startups. The fund will invest 18-20 times in space, advanced manufacturing, energy, health, and artificial intelligence startups in the next four years.

The closing rounds place Speciale among India's largest pre-seed deep-tech investors. Speciale will dominate early-stage funding rounds and back founders through the long development cycles characteristic of hardware and science-driven businesses.

“We believe the next generation of global champions will emerge from India’s labs, R&D centres, and workshops”, said Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner, Speciale Invest. “In a geopolitically complex and technologically interdependent world, building for India’s resilience and sovereign capabilities is not just a national imperative it is also a generational venture opportunity”.

With Fund III, the company will double down on sovereign-tech and deep-tech bets in space-tech, dual-use defence innovation, frontier computing, and sustainable energy, making these innovations competitive globally from day one.
The fund has the support of a solid base of repeat limited partners (LPs) consisting of family offices, institutions, and strategic investors who have long-term conviction in India's deep-tech potential.

"Deep-tech is among the most thrilling horizons for venture capital in India", added Arjun Rao, partner, Speciale Invest. "The confluence of top-notch technical talent, growing policy support, and access to international markets has provided an unprecedented window to support companies addressing some of mankind's most pressing challenges from India".

In a world of fast-paced technology disruption, supply chain shifting, and geopolitics, Speciale indicated that the capability of a country to autonomously design, develop, and deploy pivotal technologies is a strategic need. For India, this translates into capability development in space-based infrastructure, secure communications, quantum technologies, advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and dual-use defence technologies.

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They form the bedrock of economic resilience and national security. The Covid-19 pandemic, chip shortages, and wars that upset global supply chains have highlighted the dangers of excessive dependence on foreign sources for key technologies.

Since its founding in 2018, Speciale Invest has been the institutional lead investor in a number of India's top deep-tech start-ups. Some of these are Agnikul Cosmos (orbital-class launch vehicles), the ePlane Company (electric aerial mobility) and GalaxEye (multi-sensor satellite intelligence). Some others are QNu Labs (quantum cybersecurity), Fermbox (synthetic biology for industrial bioprocessing), Inspecity (in-orbit infrastructure), and Newtrace (next-generation electrolysers).

Speciale explained that it not only invested funds but also assisted its founders in working through policy structures, international certification routes, and dual-use markets, making sure Indian technologies meet and surpass international standards.