Piper Serica launches ₹800 crore Bharat Tech Fund for deep-tech startups

Mumbai-based asset manager plans to invest in 22 semiconductor, defence, AI and space-tech startups through Series A and B rounds over a six-year holding period

Piper Serica, a Mumbai-based asset manager, has launched Bharat Tech Fund with a corpus of about ₹800 crore to invest in semiconductor, defence, artificial intelligence (AI), deep-tech and space-tech start-ups.

 

The asset manager will look to invest in about 22 companies in their Series A and B rounds, with a target investment of ₹25-40 crore per company, a target gross internal rate of return (IRR) of about 30 per cent, and a holding period of six years.

 

The new fund follows its Category-I Alternate Investment Fund, which is already in force and has a corpus of about ₹273 crore, with 85 per cent of the fund deployed. Till date, that fund has invested in 30 companies, including Alt Mobility, Sensesemi, Pantherun, Freed, Coratia Technologies, and Six Sense Mobility.

 

“For the first time, Indian founders are building IP-led, engineering-first businesses that are globally competitive, not just domestically relevant. We invest in founders who demonstrate three things: the technical depth to build something genuinely defensible, the leadership capacity to build an organisation around it, and the commercial discipline to scale it with unit economics that hold,” said Piper Director Ajay Modi.

 

Such dedicated funds for the deep-tech industry have been gaining traction as investors grow comfortable investing in companies that usually have a long gestation period before generating revenue and profitability.

 

India Deep Tech Alliance (IDTA), a consortium of venture capital funds and large corporates such as Nvidia and Qualcomm, will look to invest about $10-15 million in start-ups across space, semiconductor, artificial intelligence and defence.

 

Modi added that, out of the corpus, the fund has secured a commitment of ₹300 crore from ultra-high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) and Indian family offices. In the first fund, the average investment size was about ₹6-12 crore as seed funding.

 

Piper Serica engages with institutions such as IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IISc Bengaluru, and government innovation platforms, including iDEX, IN-SPACe, and DRDO. The fund's advisory board includes S Christopher, former chairman of DRDO, alongside experts from fintech, spacetech, semiconductor and healthcare sectors.