Coming up on Tuesday, Jan. 27.
For my next conversation, I sat down with Manish Singhal, founding partner at pi Ventures, one of the earliest bona fide deep tech investors in India. pi Ventures turns 10 is a couple of months.
Before pi, Manish, an IIT Kanpur alumnus with over two decades of operating experience, built products and teams at Motorola, Ittiam Systems, and Sling Media, where he helped scale the India R&D centre during the company’s journey to a $380 million acquisition by EchoStar.
In 2016, he launched pi Ventures with a sharp focus on AI-led deep tech, backing companies like Niramai, Locus, Wysa, but also ventures like Agnikul Cosmos. With its second fund – at $85 million, almost 3X the first fund – pi Ventures has expanded its thesis to frontier sectors including spacetech, semiconductors, quantum technologies, advanced robotics, and climate-tech hardware.
Recent investments such as Moonrider (electric tractors), LightSpeed Photonics (optical interconnects for AI data centers), and Aule Space (in-orbit satellite servicing) reflect his conviction that India can build globally relevant deep tech product startups.
In this episode, Manish talks about how founders are becoming more ambitious in India and how, if we do it right, we can be counted among the world’s top deep tech nations in less than five years.
Catch the conversation right here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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