My guest in today’s episode is Arpit Agarwal, a partner at Blume Ventures, one of India’s best known early-stage sector-agnostic VC firms with a solid track record of backing what Arpit describes as frontier technologies.

In this episode, we discuss the challenges and advantages of building and scaling deep science and technology-based companies out of India. Arpit delves into his experience navigating the cycles of venture capital, the gradual shift to larger fund sizes at Blume, and the fundamentals that guide investment decisions.

He also comments on international dynamics, including the movement of talent and capital in the context of AI being widely seen as the biggest opportunity for founders and investors alike. He weighs in on the shifting balance between hardware and software within India’s deep tech scene and identifies some of the most interesting investment themes.

As Blume prepares to move into its fifth fund, Arpit is also happy to debate why sector-agnostic funds may be better placed to invest in deep tech.

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Insight

Takeaways from conversations with founders, investors, industry leaders, and other stakeholders building India’s deep tech and climate tech ecosystems.

Daily Morning Brief

Daily brief on deep tech and climate tech news from India and around the world.

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My guests today are Murari Ramkumar and Dr. Nagesh Kini, founders of Vimano, a deep-tech startup headquartered in Bengaluru, India, specializing in advanced nanotechnology and materials science.

The company focuses on developing ion-conductive membranes that are critical components for energy transition applications, including Redox flow batteries, electrolyzers for green hydrogen production and Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells.

These technologies are essential for enabling cost-effective, long-duration energy storage and supporting the global shift toward renewable energy systems.

In this conversation, Murari and Dr. Nagesh give us a glimpse into their journey that started with a chance encounter at Thermax and has grown to a venture-funded membrane technologies startup, with early customers including the Indian Space Research Organisation. They are now backed by early-stage deep science and tech focused investor Ankur Capital, a VC firm that’s among the leaders in backing founders in India in sectors ranging from agri and biotech to B2B supply chain.

In this episode, the two entrepreneurs also delve into some of the technical and entrepreneurial hurdles of building a deep-tech startup in India, from fashioning their own manufacturing tools to navigating the funding landscape and scaling up in a resource-constrained environment. In fact, Murari and Dr. Nagesh bootstrapped Vimano for five years before Ankur Capital led their first institutional funding round.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a scientist, or simply curious about the future of deep tech in India, in this episode we offer a glimpse into a journey of turning lab-scale innovation into globally relevant products and solutions.

For my pick of daily headlines on deep tech and climate tech news from India and around the world, please look for my India Tech Report: Daily Morning Brief podcast.

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My guest today is Kunal Khattar, founding managing partner at AdvantEdge Founders, an early-stage VC firm in New Delhi that’s well known for backing founders in the EV and mobility sectors in India. Kunal is well known for backing both consumer facing shared mobility ventures like Rapido and technology-led product innovation startups like Exponent Energy, which is a leader in fast-charging tech in India.

It's now 10 years since AdvantEdge was founded, Kunal says, and the firm is very close to announcing the first close of its third fund, which will likely be in the ballpark of $75 million, to back the next generation of EV entrepreneurs in India.

In this conversation, Kunal talks about why he expects the EV space to hit the J-curve growth stage over the next three to five years and how replacing the overall ICE economy in India is a trillion-dollar opportunity.

Kunal also talks about how because technology-led industry shifts can take decades, some promising technologies, like green hydrogen, for example, will take time to become mainstream.