India Tech Report

Tag: Funding

  • Why Ashok Jhunjhunwala dreams of 20 million Ranchos, Mindgrove’s latest partnership

    Why Ashok Jhunjhunwala dreams of 20 million Ranchos, Mindgrove’s latest partnership

    Hi, wherever you are, I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for supporting my work by being a subscriber. It means a lot. Here’s today’s Deep Tech Dispatch. Happy reading and listening.

    The Lede

    If you’re interested in India’s semiconductor products ecosystem, here’s some news for you today. It’s one milestone for one young company, but one more significant step in India’s efforts to move from being almost entirely reliant on imports in a trillion-dollar industry to building our own supply chain.

    Mindgrove Technologies: Indian silicon moves from lab to market

    For decades, India’s semiconductor industry resembled an architect designing villas for others while living in a rented flat. The country’s semiconductor engineers, who constitute approximately 20 percent (a widely accepted industry estimate) of the global chip-design workforce, have long generated intellectual property for foreign titans while India remained dependent on imports for its own consumption.…

    In the latest episode of Conversations, today

    20 million Ranchos: Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala’s vision for achieving tech sovereignty for India

    In this episode, I’m joined by Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a doyen among India’s champions of technology-led innovation for the masses, to discuss his latest moonshot venture: the ITEL Foundation (Immersive Technology and Entrepreneurship Lab). After decades of bridging academia and industry at the IIT Madras Research Park, over the last two years, Professor Jhunjhunwala has…

    If you missed last week’s episode

    Founder Spotlight

    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 startups. Here’s wishing you a great rest of the day.

    — Hari

  • Why Indian deep tech needs corporate R&D and M&A, Vinod Shankar explains

    Why Indian deep tech needs corporate R&D and M&A, Vinod Shankar explains

    In my recent conversation with Vinod Shankar, founding partner at Java Capital, we discussed his note on how India could unlock a massive pool of capital and invest a trillion dollars in deep tech startups.
    Here’s a viewpoint on one of the topics, how corporate R&D and M&A play an important role in the growth of deep tech startups in the advanced economies. And how that’s been missing in India, so far.

  • Can India put a trillion dollars in deep tech? Vinod Shankar at Java Capital unpacks how

    Can India put a trillion dollars in deep tech? Vinod Shankar at Java Capital unpacks how

    Hi, wherever you are, I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for supporting my work by being a subscriber. It means a lot. Here’s today’s Deep Tech Dispatch. Happy reading and listening.

    The Lede

    In today’s episode of Conversations, I’m joined by Vinod Shankar, co-founder of Java Capital, a venture capital firm that has carved a unique niche by focusing on deep tech and climate technology. Vinod’s journey is as specialized as his investments, moving from writing assembly code for mobile processors to leading a fund that backs moonshots in aerospace, silicon photonics, and advanced manufacturing.

    Vinod recently ignited a lively debate in the startup ecosystem with his provocative essay, titled “I Want India to Win. Just Not With My Money.” He argues that India’s path to becoming a developed nation is being hindered by “sedimented” wealth. For example, consider one data point he highlights: while India’s wealthiest 1 percent control some $11.6 trillion, nearly 60 percent of those assets are frozen in real estate and gold.

    In other words, not funding the future, he says. He also critiques India’s largest corporations for being “structurally allergic” to R&D risk, noting that global giants such as NVIDIA outspend the entire Indian corporate sector in a single quarter.

    In this conversation we also talk about Java Capital’s next fund, their third, targeting Rs. 400 crore with a first close coming up, their “stacking” investment strategy, and Vinod’s urgent call for India’s ultra rich investors to allocate 10 percent of their net worth to domestic deep tech to secure the future of the nation’s technological sovereignty.

    If you missed last week’s episode

    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 startups. Here’s wishing you a great rest of the day.

    — Hari

  • 10 pct challenge: Vinod Shankar at Java Capital on how India can put $1 trillion in deep tech

    10 pct challenge: Vinod Shankar at Java Capital on how India can put $1 trillion in deep tech

    In today’s episode of Conversations, I’m joined by Vinod Shankar, co-founder of Java Capital, a venture capital firm that has carved a unique niche by focusing on deep tech and climate technology. Vinod’s journey is as specialized as his investments, moving from writing assembly code for mobile processors to leading a fund that backs moonshots in aerospace, silicon photonics, and advanced manufacturing.

    Vinod recently ignited a lively debate in the startup ecosystem with his provocative essay, titled “I Want India to Win. Just Not With My Money.” He argues that India’s path to becoming a developed nation is being hindered by “sedimented” wealth. For example, consider one data point he highlights: while India’s wealthiest 1 percent control some $11.6 trillion, nearly 60 percent of those assets are frozen in real estate and gold.

    In other words, not funding the future, he says. He also critiques India’s largest corporations for being “structurally allergic” to R&D risk, noting that global giants such as NVIDIA outspend the entire Indian corporate sector in a single quarter.

    In this conversation we also talk about Java Capital’s next fund, their third, targeting Rs. 400 crore with a first close coming up, their “stacking” investment strategy, and Vinod’s urgent call for India’s ultra rich investors to allocate 10 percent of their net worth to domestic deep tech to secure the future of the nation’s technological sovereignty.

  • Ethereal Machines founders’ early services pivot begins to pay off

    Ethereal Machines founders’ early services pivot begins to pay off

    It became clear fairly early to Kaushik Mudda and Navin Jain, founders of Ethereal Machines, that when it came to a new hi-tech hardware product offered by a startup, in India, everything from funding to sales would be a steep uphill battle.

    Instead of giving up, or starting something else, they made an innovative pivot. They knew their CNC machines were really good. Potential customers were already giving them good feedback on the samples of various components that their machines were turning out.

    They decided to pivot and seize that very opportunity – to make components for customers, with their own machines – instead of trying to sell the machines. They went all-in on their machining-as-a-service strategy.

    Looks like that playbook is beginning to pay off for them. New well known investors have come onboard to back their startup’s Series B round, Kaushik and Navin announced yesterday, confirming various earlier reports.

    The RVCE alumni, who started Ethereal even as they were graduating (but more formally in 2016), have now scored $28.5 million, giving them the financial wherewithal to expand their capacity significantly and put them on the road to scale and longer term success.

    That brings their total funding to $52 million. In addition to Blume Ventures, which backed the 10-year-old company in 2019, which was probably the founders’ first institutional investor cheque, and Peak XV Partners, which backed their Series A about a year ago, they now count Avataar Venture Partners as an investor. Avataar led the Series B investment with Peak XV investing.

    Moneycontrol reports that the funds be used to build a 300,000 sq. ft. factory in Doddaballapura near Bengaluru, and boost critical R&D, including an AI-powered factory software platform, Vesper, and “India’s first proprietary multi-axis CNC controller.”

    The new factory will raise capacity six-fold, according to the report. Ethereal is also stepping up its business with makers of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and expanding teams in the US and Europe.

    Note that for now, their website doesn’t have a products tab for customers to click on and that’s fair — they want to project their focus on their machining services expertise to the external world. But, can, or should Kaushik and Navin also sell the CNC machines themselves. Made-in-India precision manufacturing gear that can hold its own against German or Japanese engineering?

  • 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.