Generalist VCs in India bet big on deep-tech, innovation-driven companies

Deep-tech now forms over half of VC portfolios in India as firms like Cornerstone, Unicorn India Ventures and All in Capital back startups combining research with scalable models

Deeptech is no longer a niche bet for investors as it now commands more than 50 per cent of the portfolio of several generalist venture capital (VC) firms in India.

 

Signalling a shift in the investment landscape from consumer-first bets to technology-driven companies, VCs are increasingly backing startups that combine research-led innovation with scalable business models.

 

Cornerstone Ventures, which made its first deeptech investment in 2019, has made four such investments in 2024 and expects to back five more this year.

 

“In our Fund-I, at least 60-70 per cent companies were either purely deeptech or were leveraging new-age core technologies to deliver business outcomes,” said Abhishek Prasad, managing partner of the firm. “To name a few, Newspace Research Technologies in UAVs, Dhiway Technologies in private blockchain infrastructure, Dopplr in Web3.0, Nitro in AI assistants, Credit Nirvana in ML for loan book health assessment,” Prasad added. 

For Unicorn India Ventures, deeptech comprises 64.7 per cent of its portfolio, with investments in companies such as Netrasemi Technologies, Kuisz, Orbitaid, Eyerov, and DeepAlgorithm. The firm is deploying capital from its third fund (₹1,000 crore), which is focused on deeptech, founder and managing partner Anil Joshi said. It made six deeptech investments in 2024 and aims to back seven more companies by the end of 2025.

 

All in Capital, founded in 2022, plans to invest in more than three deeptech companies by the end of this year with focus on cutting-edge innovation. It has already backed one in drones and another in robotics. “Currently, deeptech and AI comprise 50 per cent of our portfolio,” said founder and partner Kushal Bhagia, adding that the firm is looking to strengthen its focus on cutting-edge innovation.

 

Angel investing network Inflection Point Ventures has also made deeptech a key focus, with 15 bets so far, including BonV Aero (drones), Xovian Aerospace, and DreamAerospace (spacetech).

 

According to data from market intelligence platform Tracxn, total deeptech funding in India stood at $1.5 billion across 432 rounds in 2024. As of 2025, it stands at $1.09 billion with 202 rounds.

 

VC firms attribute this momentum to a mix of factors, such as policy push, talent availability, and availability of patient capital.

 

“It’s really the maturing innovation ecosystem that is enabling this growth. We were once a pure services economy, then moved to productised services (simple applications on traditional infrastructure). Now, we are in an era of deeptech enablers with application wrappers. The next phase will be foundational-level deeptech innovation,” said Prasad of Cornerstone Ventures, adding that deeptech has the potential to create the underlying technologies for multi-sector use cases.

 

Joshi of Unicorn India Ventures said the government allowed participation of private companies in the defence and space sector. In June 2022, it launched a design-linked incentive scheme for promoting research and development. These developments provided a policy push, he noted.

 

Echoing these views, Bhagia of All in Capital said: “The key drivers of deeptech growth in India are the significant increase in defence spending, with over ₹1 trillion earmarked for domestic procurement this year; the privatisation of the space sector, supported by a ₹1,000 crore spacetech fund launched by IN-SPACe; and the availability of exceptional technical talent from institutions such as IITs, BITS, and Isro.