Speciale Invest Announces New Rs 200 Crore Fund For Deep Tech Start-ups

Speciale Invest, a venture capital firm that has funded space and technology startups such as Agnikul Cosmos and QNu Labs, on Wednesday announced a new fund with a Rs 200 crore corpus to provide series A and above funding to initiatives in the deep-tech sector.

The Speciale Invest Growth Fund I, with an initial investment of Rs 100 crore, has received approval from market regulator SEBI to provide series A and above funding to high-potential technology startups, supporting India's enterprise and deep-tech startup ecosystem, a company statement said.

The fund expects to close the corpus at Rs 200 crore in the next three-four months, it said.

"Our new Growth Fund I is an extension of our vision and commitment to expand our investment strategy to support high-performing technology startups from our portfolio at the Series A and beyond stages," Arjun Rao, General Partner at Speciale Invest said in a statement.

Founded in 2017 by Vishesh Rajaram and Arjun Rao, Speciale Invest had a successful track record of investing in pioneering deep-science and tech companies including Ultraviolette, Agnikul Cosmos, ePlane Company, Cynlr, Qnu Labs, Galaxeye Space, Uravu Labs, NewTrace, e-TRNL Energy, Wingman, StreamAlive, Airboxr, Trainn.

"Our newly launched Growth Fund I is a testament to our commitment to investing in high-potential technology startups, and we look forward to working closely with founders building for the world from India," said Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner at Speciale Invest.

Rao said with an initial investment of Rs 100 crore and plans to increase it further in the coming months, Speciale Invest looked forward to partnering with promising startups and providing them with the resources and guidance they need to achieve their full potential.

In 2018, Speciale Invest raised its first fund of Rs 60 crore, which backed 18 companies with an average deal size of sub-USD 0.5 million and scored five early exits.

Last year, the company announced the final close of its second fund at Rs 300 crore, with plans to invest in more than 20-22 early-stage companies through pre-seed and seed rounds.