<\/p>\n
Speciale Invest managing partner Vishesh Rajaram (left) and general partner Arjun Rao <\/p>\n
Speciale Invest, a Chennai-based venture capital<\/a> firm that focuses on deep-tech startups, has closed its third fund after securing Rs 600 crore ($68.5 million) in commitments from its limited partners (LP),\u00a0 surpassing its initial target of Rs 500 crore. This is more than double the corpus it raised for its second vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n The firm said in a statement on Tuesday it received commitments from returning LPs including family offices, institutions, and strategic investors for the fund.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Fund III, the firm will double down on sovereign-tech and deep-tech bets\u2014across space-tech, dual-use defense innovation, frontier computing, and sustainable energy\u2014while ensuring these innovations are globally competitive from day one,\u201d\u00a0 it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Through the fund, the VC firm will back about 18-20 early-stage startups over the next four years across sectors such as space, advanced manufacturing, energy, health, and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe the next generation of global champions will emerge from India\u2019s labs, R&D centers, and workshops,\u201d said Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner, Speciale Invest<\/a>. \u201cIn a geopolitically complex and technologically interdependent world, building for India\u2019s resilience and sovereign capabilities is not just a national imperative\u2014it is also a generational venture opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Separately, Rajaram told VCCircle in an interaction that about 90% of the capital for the third fund is from domestic LPs, with family offices committing a significant amount. More than half of the new fund\u2019s LPs are returning investors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re very fortunate that Fund III has more than 50% repeat LPs from our past fund. It’s very gratifying to build on top of the support of folks that have already invested, which then gives you a leg up when you’re going out to fundraise in the market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He also said that the VC firm follows \u201ca slightly differentiated strategy\u201d within venture capital. \u201cWe\u2019re a specialist early-stage VC. We invest in deep-science and tech. A lot of what we have done\u2013right or wrong\u2013has been with high conviction. What’s interesting is our own investors\u2026 have also had very high conviction in our thesis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The new fund\u2019s initial cheque size will be about Rs 7-10 crore for a 10% stake. \u201cFor follow-on rounds, it depends on the need and how the company is doing,\u201d Rajaram said.<\/p>\n Speciale Invest was founded in 2017 by Rajaram and Arjun Rao. The VC firm invests in pre-seed and seed rounds of deep-science and tech companies, with a focus on emerging technology areas such as spacetech, aerospace, green hydrogen, robotics, batteries, quantum-tech, AI-led SaaS, dev tools, data infrastructure, and large language model applications and infrastructure.<\/p>\n Its portfolio includes Ultraviolette<\/a>, Agnikul Cosmos<\/a>, The ePlane Company<\/a>, Cynlr, Qnu Labs, Galaxeye Space, Uravu Labs, NewTrace, e-TRNL Energy, Wingman, StreamAlive, Airboxr, and Trainn.\u00a0<\/p>\n