Deep tech in India: Siddharth Mehta of TDK Ventures speaks with Vishesh Rajaram of Speciale Invest

The UpstreamLife

It is time for a deep technology podcast focused only on India. Why? India has a tradition of deep science and one only has to look at its academic work to realize that there is a celebrated history of deep technology.
To further enable the Deep Tech community in India, TDK Ventures is setting up an “Innovation Hub”, a shared office space in Bengaluru to bring together deep tech investors committed to contributing to society. If that resonates with you, we would love to chat on how we partner on the “Innovation Hub.”
In our first episode we will be talking to Vishesh Rajaram, the Managing Partner of Speciale Invest, a fund that has taken multiple bets on the Indian deep technology ecosystem.
Siddharth Mehta, Investment Director, TDK Ventures, broadly talks to Vishesh about the ecosystem, opportunities it presents and advice to entrepreneurs.
In this podcast, Siddharth and Vishesh discuss how universities are catalyzing deep tech startups in India — just like how MIT and Stanford catalyzed the U.S. startup ecosystem. Indian universities are seeing a shift from working only on research to solution orientation and working with corporates.
The podcast enunciates why deep technology startups and the founders must note the key pillars of diligence. Founders need to be strong in their domain knowledge (founder moat), they need to know why this is the right time for their technology and the company. They should understand their IP strategy and look at technology and business models which are exponential versus incremental changes with high gross margins.
The next 10 years is about building deep tech from India and is the next wave of attracting large capital. Since the opportunity is so fresh, there is no single standard deep tech playbook across all the sectors and investors and founders need to carve their own path to success. Vishesh mentions the key deep tech trends to look for in India — material science, synthetic biology and manufacturing. He shares key advice with global VCs entering India: “Unlearn what you know about India and work with Indian institutions, investors and partners to acclimatize”.
Guide to the podcast.
00:00 — Introduction
00:57 — What is deep technology? Vishesh defines the meaning of it.
04:10 — India’s deep technology, its history and the present.
10:00 — Doing diligence on an early stage deep tech company.
13:14 — Making deep tech investments mainstream — a VC’s outlook.
21:54 — India’s deep tech strengths.
25:31 — Limited Partners and their mindset on deep tech investments.
28:29 — Top three deep tech trends in India.
30:36 — India for the world with deep technology.
33:00 — Advice to deep tech entrepreneurs.

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