Speciale Invest to launch Rs 1,400 crore Growth Fund II to support Indian deeptech startups

Chennai-based deeptech venture capital firm Speciale Invest is set to launch its Rs 1,400 crore Growth Fund II, aiming to plug a long-standing gap in India’s deeptech funding landscape for startups.

The new fund will back 12-15 startups, with average cheque sizes of $5-8 million.

Vishesh Rajaram, founding partner at Speciale Invest, said that while India has seen a steady inflow of capital into early-stage deeptech, growth-stage funding remains scarce.

“India does not have a deeptech problem at the seed stage. The real gap is growth capital. Many startups have de-risked science, but they still need capital to become self-sustaining institutions,” he said.

The fund will continue to invest across sectors such as spacetech, advanced manufacturing, energy storage, quantum computing, health and biosciences, and defence technologies.

Speciale Invest expects a shift in its limited partner base for the growth fund, with greater participation from institutional investors. Early-stage funds, by contrast, are likely to continue seeing stronger interest from family offices. Rajaram noted that India’s LP base has become increasingly informed about allocating capital across different risk–reward profiles.

To strengthen its growth-stage investing capabilities, the firm has onboarded Vijay Jacob as general partner. Jacob, a former founding member of NewQuest Capital, now part of TPG NewQuest, said the fund will focus on backing deeptech companies that have mitigated scientific risk and are ready for capacity building and global competition.

The launch of Growth Fund II comes four months after Speciale closed its Fund III at Rs 600 crore, exceeding its original target of Rs 500 crore. Fund III is focused on early-stage investments and plans to back 18–20 startups in areas such as AI infrastructure, spacetech, climatetech, quantum systems, advanced manufacturing, and dual-use defence, with cheque sizes ranging from Rs 7 crore to Rs 10 crore.

Across its last three early-stage funds launched in 2018, 2021 and 2025, Speciale Invest has backed around 35 startups. Its portfolio includes companies such as Agnikul Cosmos, GalaxEye, ePlane Company, Ultraviolette, CynLr and QNu Labs. The firm has recorded nine M&A exits to date and has been steadily increasing its ownership in portfolio companies, targeting an average stake of about 15 percent in Fund III, up from 5 percent in Fund I and 10 percent in Fund II.