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Your front row seat to innovation - curated drops of content from the heart of the DeepTech scene.


Green hydrogen in India: New opportunities for deep tech startups
India's ambitious push into green hydrogen production is creating substantial opportunities for domestic deep-tech startups, with companies like Newtrace demonstrating how innovative engineering can address cost barriers that have limited clean hydrogen adoption. The government's National Green Hydrogen Mission, launched in January 2023 with close to Rs. 20,000 crore in funding, aims to produce five million tonnes annually by 2030. Recent policy developments have accelera

Speciale Invest
3 min read


De-romanticising the robot: A reality check in the age of billion-dollar humanoid dreams
The robotics industry finds itself at a fascinating crossroads. While Figure AI recently secured more than $1 billion at a staggering $39 billion valuation—a 15x increase from its previous funding round—and other humanoid robotics companies chase similarly astronomical valuations, some industry practitioners advocate for a more grounded approach to automation. Gokul NA and Nikhil Ramaswamy, the founders of CynLr, a Bengaluru-based robotics company that has deliberately chos

Speciale Invest
4 min read


Can India produce a global energy leader: early lessons from Anubal Fusion’s experience
In our previous essay on this topic, we looked at the nuclear opportunity landscape for startups in India. Here, we offer a perspective through the lens of one of our own portfolio startups, Anubal Fusion. Building on India's emerging nuclear fusion landscape, Anubal Fusion represents a fascinating case study of how Indian entrepreneurs are tapping cutting-edge science to address the global energy crisis. Founded in May 2024 by serial entrepreneur Dr. Pravin Kini, Anubal, bas

Speciale Invest
7 min read


Why We Invested in Dashamlabs: Building India’s First Scalable Silica Aerogel Platform
Energy efficiency is the invisible backbone of industrial decarbonization. Whether in electric mobility, clean energy systems, or advanced manufacturing, the ability to manage heat effectively determines both performance and sustainability. Yet, insulation, one of the simplest levers for efficiency, remains underserved by innovation and dominated by low-performance materials.

Vishnu Rajeev
3 min read


Beyond the Lab: How MXenes and Self-Healing Materials are following the new advanced materials playbook
This is the fourth and final part of the four-part series which will dive deeper into Advanced Materials. This series would not have been possible without the research conducted by Sanjana Vijay, Research Analyst Intern at Speciale Invest, whose effort significantly shaped its content.

Sunil Cavale
5 min read


The rise of India’s chip design startups and ecosystem expansion
India's semiconductor startup landscape is becoming richer, helped by strategic partnerships, more venture funding as well as greater public support for startups in the sector. We are beginning to see milestones reached that mark the early stages of a shift from tech demonstrations to commercial operations.

Speciale Invest
4 min read


Doubling Down on India’s Semiconductor Future: Our Continued Partnership with Morphing Machines
Morphing Machines raises a $4.3M Series A round to accelerate its efforts to build ‘REDEFINE’ a parallel-processing reconfigurable chip for new-age applications.

Sunil Cavale
4 min read


RTOS – The Invisible OS Shaping the Future of Intelligent Machines
Every time your car brakes just in time, or a drone steadies itself against a sudden gust of wind, a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) is silently at work. Unlike consumer-facing systems like Windows or Linux, which juggle tasks for throughput and efficiency, RTOS are designed for one absolute requirement: determinism. They guarantee that critical operations happen within microseconds, without fail.

Dhanush Ram
7 min read


Our Investment in Unmannd: Re-defining Aerial Autonomy for India’s Strategic Edge
In the past decade, conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East have shown us a new doctrine of war: one where low-cost drones are rewriting the rules of the battlefield. Nuclear bombers worth billions have been neutralized by kamikaze drones priced at a fraction of the cost.
Nithish Kumar
5 min read
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Semiconductor Startup Landscape in India
The Indian semiconductor ecosystem is at an inflection point, with rapid activity in progress across almost all aspects of the value chain. Globally too, the semiconductor industry is buoyed by the growth in AI and AI infrastructure. As venture capital investors in India, we are excited about what this activity means for early-stage startups and how they grow and interface with a rapidly changing industry.
In this report, we dive into the factors propelling the sector forward - rising global demand, favourable geopolitical shifts, and strong policy backing through initiatives like the DLI, C2S, and PLI schemes.
Our goal is to offer investors, founders, and ecosystem enablers a realistic and hopeful view of how India is gearing up to lead in deeptech innovation. Over the past five years, we’ve seen more than $300M invested in Indian semicon startups, and the momentum is only building. We’ve observed a shift in founder profiles - from engineers returning from global design firms to professors productizing academic research - and it’s encouraging to see VCs becoming increasingly comfortable coming in early.
This report reflects not just data, but our experiences working closely with some of these incredible teams - teams that are creating real IP, solving hard tech problems, and building for global markets from Indian soil.To me, this isn’t just an emerging opportunity - it’s a defining moment. India is no longer just a service destination; we’re watching the rise of a product-first, IP-driven semiconductor ecosystem that’s still young but deeply promising.
This report was done in collaboration with Vishal Katariya of Ankur Capital was first presented at the Second Annual SemiX Summit at IIT-Bombay in November 2024
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