India Tech Report

Author: Life, while I wait

  • Coming up: Intel veteran Ramamurthy Sivakumar on HrdWyr’s roadmap for AI-native chips from India

    Coming up: Intel veteran Ramamurthy Sivakumar on HrdWyr’s roadmap for AI-native chips from India

    HrdWyr, a Bengaluru-based semiconductor startup, recently secured $13 million in Series A funding led by Ideaspring Capital to advance its AI-native chip technology. The company specializes in System-on-Chip (AISoC) designs tailored for edge computing and real-world applications like electric vehicles and industrial equipment.

    A significant milestone for the firm is its partnership with boAt and Tata Electronics to produce the Indus 1011, a locally designed chip for audio wearables.

    Companies such as HrdWyr are getting funded in the time of a broader national push for semiconductor self-reliance, supported by significant government investment and rising market demand.

    Yesterday, I spoke to Co-founder and CEO Ramamurthy Sivakumar, an Intel Corp veteran, on HrdWyr’s plans. Catch the full interview right here on Tuesday, June 16th. Here’s a 90 second preview, with Siva talking about the massive influence of AI.

  • Is Skyroot deep tech India’s Flipkart moment and other questions

    Is Skyroot deep tech India’s Flipkart moment and other questions

    Hi,

    Wherever you’re reading this, I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for supporting my work by being a subscriber. It means a lot.

    The lede

    Happy to bring you Part 2, the concluding part, of my interview with the founders of Ideaspring Capital. There was plenty of plain speaking in this one, which to me as a reporter, was insightful. It gave me more clarity on where we stand today as a still-nascent deep tech ecosystem.

    And, of course, I asked them what they thought of Skyroot’s billion dollar valuation and what that meant for the broader deep tech landscape in India.

    Satish Padmanabhan on DIMAAG’s power electronics innovations for AI data centres

    In this episode, Satish Padmanabhan, co-founder and CEO of DIMAAG, unpacks his company’s innovations for the critical power infrastructure shift needed to sustain the AI revolution. Satish is a genuine serial entrepreneur, with DIMAAG being his seventh venture and also his “longest job” as he jokes. The company’s evolution goes from a smart factory quality…

    Today’s Pick

    A daily recommendation of a conversation with a founder, VC investor or industry executive, or an interesting text read as well

    Founder Spotlight

    A weekly recommendation of interviews with founders. From the archives. Changes every Friday.

    That’s it for today. When you have a minute, please would you share this with friends who might be interested in India’s deep tech and climate tech startups. Here’s wishing you a great rest of the day.

  • Deep tech: Ideaspring Capital’s founders on the circle of life and other investing lessons (Part 2)

    Deep tech: Ideaspring Capital’s founders on the circle of life and other investing lessons (Part 2)

    In today’s episode, I bring you Part 2 of an interview with Naganand Doraswamy, managing partner, and Suryaprakash Konanuru, CTO, at Ideaspring Capital in Bengaluru.

    In this episode, we pick up the conversation with a brief discussion on what the two VC investors are seeing when it comes to the growth of translational research in India — and I want to add that this was in the broader sense of any movement from scientific lab to commercial product, and not just in the medical field, where the term originated.

    And if you stick around you’ll hear Naganand and Suri discuss their views on how early-stage investing in deep tech is changing, can such investors make meaningful investments in highly capital intensive sectors such as robotics, nuclear fusion and quantum computing hardware, in India, getting something not quite right but moving on, and whether AI is changing their work as well, and in what ways.

    And as promised in Part 1, we take a quick look at what might represent a ‘Flipkart moment’ in India’s deep tech sector, and the evolution of Ideaspring itself from Fund 1 to Fund 4.

  • The entrepreneurs turned deep tech VCs’ life and other recommendations

    The entrepreneurs turned deep tech VCs’ life and other recommendations

    Hi,

    Wherever you’re reading this, I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for supporting my work by being a subscriber. It means a lot.

    A quick note on the name of the newsletter, which I hope to freeze as Deep Tech Dispatch. I tried to learn a bit more about SEO and how the format of the newsletter headline affects it and so on. Second, I was also looking for something better than simply saying today on ITR. So let’s go.

    Tomorrow

    Part 2 of my interview with Naganand Doraswamy and Suryaprakash Konanuru at Ideaspring Capital

    Ideaspring Capital’s founders on their entrepreneurs turned VCs life | Preview

    Naganand Doraswamy, managing partner, and Suryaprakash Konanuru, CTO at Ideaspring Capital, a well known deep tech VC firm in Bengaluru, sat down with me recently for an interview, which I’m publishing in two parts. Catch Part 2, the concluding part, tomorrow, in which they talk about the raise-invest-grow-exit imperative of venture investing, and what that…

    Today’s Pick

    A daily recommendation of a conversation with a founder, VC investor or industry executive, or an interesting text read as well

    Founder Spotlight

    A weekly recommendation of interviews with founders. From the archives. Changes every Friday.

    That’s it for today. When you have a minute, please would you share this with friends who might be interested in India’s deep tech and climate tech startups. Here’s wishing you a great rest of the day.

  • Ideaspring Capital’s founders on their entrepreneurs turned VCs life | Preview

    Ideaspring Capital’s founders on their entrepreneurs turned VCs life | Preview

    Naganand Doraswamy, managing partner, and Suryaprakash Konanuru, CTO at Ideaspring Capital, a well known deep tech VC firm in Bengaluru, sat down with me recently for an interview, which I’m publishing in two parts.

    Catch Part 2, the concluding part, tomorrow, in which they talk about the raise-invest-grow-exit imperative of venture investing, and what that means for investing in deep tech startups in India.
    What’s happening in India’s top science and engineering schools when it comes to the lab-to-market journey? How is AI changing VC in deep tech and the ‘Flipkart moment’ of deep tech in India.

  • Mitti Labs carbon project platform and other climate conversations

    Mitti Labs carbon project platform and other climate conversations

    Hi, wherever you’re reading this, I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for supporting my work by being a subscriber. It means a lot.

    A new episode on the podcast: a conversation with the founders of Mitti Labs

    It’s World Environment Day today, and the latest episode on my podcast features a conversation with the founders of Mitti Labs on their carbon project to help rice farmers cut methane emissions from their fields, save water and make money from the sale of the carbon credits generated from the green house gas reduction.

    $12.8 billion: Cumulative climate tech funding in India according to a new report

    Tracxn, a global private markets data provider, has just released its India Climate Tech Report 2026, saying that the sector is becoming increasingly investible.

    Two other podcast episode recommendations if climate tech and related finance interests you.

    A noteworthy effort combining ESG and India’s digital public infrastructure model.

    Next week

    On Tuesday, I’ll publish Part 2 of a wonderful conversation with Naganand Doraswamy (managing partner) and Suryaprakash Konanuru (CTO), founders of Ideaspring Capital. We talk about what might represent the ‘Flipkart moment’ of deep tech in India, and plans for the VC firm ahead.

    That’s it for today. When you have a minute, please would you share this with friends who might be interested in India’s deep tech and climate tech startups. Here’s wishing you a great rest of the day.