DeepTech with a manufacturing edge
Robotics, advanced materials, space, industrial IoT — global business model, Indian engineering footprint.
The 'Make in India' narrative was for many years an aspiration. As of 2026, it is a measurable industrial buildout — semiconductor fabs in Gujarat, defense exports crossing $3B annually, and robotics adoption rates accelerating off a low base. DeepTech is the venture category most under-served by Indian capital today.
I. The market shift
Scroll to walk through the three structural shifts. The chart on the right updates as each step comes into view.
China-plus-one is no longer a slogan — it's a measurable redirection of capital
The post-2022 redirection of manufacturing, semiconductors, climate technology, and defense-adjacent industries away from Chinese supply chains is now in the trillions of dollars annually. India is the largest single beneficiary of that reallocation — not because India is uniquely virtuous, but because India is the only economy with the demographic scale, English-speaking engineering bench, and political alignment to absorb the reallocation at speed.
Production-Linked Incentives are real industrial policy
PLI schemes have committed over $26 billion across 14 sectors including semiconductors, electronics, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and advanced chemistry. Apple is now manufacturing 14% of global iPhone production in India and targeting 25% by 2027. The semiconductor mission has attracted Tata, Micron, and Foxconn commitments. This is not speculative; it's already reshaping the cost basis for industrial DeepTech companies that anchor in India.
The capital gap is the opportunity
DeepTech is the venture category most under-served by Indian capital today. The gap is not one of quality — Sastra Robotics, Perleybrook, AeroNero, and DeepIQ in our Fund I portfolio prove the technical caliber is world-class. The gap is that domestic Indian capital is risk-averse on hardware timelines, and global DeepTech capital is reluctant to underwrite India-specific operational complexity. That gap is precisely the kind of inefficiency a focused fund with operator depth can exploit.
II. Sub-themes within the pillar
Robotics and automation
Industrial robotics adoption in India is growing at 20%+ annually off a low base. The buyers are global — aerospace OEMs in the US, automotive Tier-1s in Europe, medical-device makers everywhere — and the manufacturing footprint is increasingly Indian. We back robotics companies with US sales motion + Indian engineering.
Industrial IoT and DataOps
The convergence of OT and IT data inside large industrial enterprises is one of the largest under-priced TAMs in software today. Energy operators, utilities, and heavy manufacturers are rebuilding their data and AI infrastructure simultaneously. India-built no-code DataOps platforms can serve this market at fundamentally different unit economics than incumbent industrial software.
Space, advanced materials, and defense-adjacent
India's space-tech ecosystem has expanded rapidly post-IN-SPACe reforms. Defense exports have crossed $3B annually with deliberate liberalization. Advanced materials (specialty chemicals, electronics-grade silicon, battery cathode materials) are receiving PLI-driven investment. Each of these is a multi-decade buildout.
III. Where we see the wedge
Within this pillar, we look for three specific shapes of company. Each is a different way of expressing the same conviction.
Companies whose revenue is in dollars from US/EU enterprises but whose engineering and manufacturing is concentrated in India. The cost-of-goods-sold advantage is structural and sustainable.
No-code DataOps, operational AI, asset performance management — built for industrial enterprises that are spending 10× their historical software budget on AI initiatives.
Components, sensors, robotics, and equipment that customers explicitly want to source outside China. India-built and India-shipped, sold globally.
IV. Why we have the right to win in this pillar
We are one of the few US-India corridor funds with the operator depth to underwrite hardware. Our Fund I DeepTech portfolio (Sastra, Perleybrook, DeepIQ, Sector Qube) demonstrates the operating model — global enterprise sales motion, Indian engineering, premium positioning. The Hurun India network surfaces DeepTech founders who would otherwise be invisible to Silicon Valley.
V. Companies in our portfolio expressing this pillar
The bets we have already made are the proof that the conviction is operational, not theoretical. 4 companies in Fund I currently sit in this pillar.
VI. Outlook
We expect 3–4 of Fund II's positions in this pillar. Concentration on industrial software (highest-margin shape) with one or two hardware plays where the moat is genuinely defensible.
The four pillars sit inside one thesis. Read the cornerstone essay, or see how Fund II operationalizes them.