Speciale Invest, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in deep science and enterprise technologies, has launched its Speciale Invest Growth Fund I.
The new fund has an initial investment of Rs 100 crore, and the firm expects to close the corpus at Rs 200 crore in the next three-four months.
Speciale’s investments are generally in emerging technology areas such as SpaceTech, Aerospace, Green Hydrogen, Robotics, Batteries, Quantum Tech, AI-led SAAS, Dev tools, Data Infrastructure, and Large Language Model (LLM) Applications/ Infrastructure, among others.
Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner at Speciale Invest said, “Deep science and enterprise technologies have the power to revolutionise industries and solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. At Speciale Invest, we are proud to support and nurture the next generation of innovative start-ups that are driving this change. Growth Fund I is a testament to our commitment to investing in high-potential technology start-ups, and we look forward to working closely with founders building for the world from India.”
Arjun Rao, General Partner at Speciale Invest said, “Our new Growth Fund I is an extension of our vision and commitment to expand our investment strategy to support high-performing technology start-ups from our portfolio at the Series A and beyond stages. With an initial investment of Rs 100 crore and plans to increase it further in the coming months, we look forward to partnering with promising start-ups and providing them resources and guidance. We see immense opportunities in the start-up ecosystem in India and would continue to empower young change-makers in our capacity.”
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In 2018, Speciale Invest raised its first fund of Rs 60 crore, which backed 18 companies with an average deal size of sub-$500,000 and resulted in five early exits. On April 6, 2022, the company announced the final close of its second fund at Rs 300 crore, with plans to invest in more than 20-22 early-stage companies through pre-seed and seed rounds. The average cheque size ranged from $500,000 to $1 million.