Yali Capital, a Bengaluru-based venture capital firm, has announced the final close of its maiden deeptech fund, raising INR 893 crore (approximately $103.2 million). The fund, initially launched in July last year with a target corpus of INR 810 crore, is aimed at supporting early-stage startups in India’s emerging deep technology ecosystem.
With a sectoral focus on chip design, robotics, genomics, smart manufacturing, aerospace, and artificial intelligence (AI), the fund has drawn backing from prominent institutional and corporate investors, including Infosys, Qualcomm Ventures, the DPIIT’s Fund of Funds for Startups, and Evolvence.
Notable individual investors include Gopal Srinivasan, founder of TVS Capital; Utpal Sheth, CEO of Rare Enterprises; and Vishal Kampani, Managing Director at JM Financial.
Registered as a SEBI-approved Category II Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), Yali Capital had originally targeted INR 500 crore with a greenshoe option of INR 310 crore. The fund was co-founded by Ganapathy Subramaniam, cofounder of Cosmic Circuits, and Mathew Cyriac, a former executive at Blackstone.
Subramaniam brings over 15 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, having worked at Texas Instruments before founding Cosmic Circuits, which was later acquired by Cadence. He has also invested in a number of deeptech ventures including ideaForge, Tonbo Imaging, and Aurasemi through Celesta Capital.
Speaking to Inc42 about India’s deeptech landscape, Subramaniam said, “China is well ahead in the deeptech space and has overtaken America. India has all the potential from services to deeptech, but certainly has much distance to cover.”
So far, Yali Capital has made five investments, including genomics startup 4baseCare, robotics firm Perceptyne Robots, and fabless chip design company C2i Semiconductors. The firm plans to back up to eight companies by the end of 2024.
Yali’s fund marks a growing interest in India’s deeptech ecosystem, which remains undercapitalized despite the country’s robust talent base and increasing global relevance in frontier technologies.
