For years, deep-tech investing in India struggled to escape a credibility gap. Founders came armed with impressive science, but little clarity on commercial outcomes. Long gestation cycles clashed with venture fund timelines, and many investors quietly wrote off the sector as ‘lab projects’. In 2024–25, that perception has begun to change—driven largely by India’s spacetech startups.
Spacetech has emerged as a rare proof point that deep tech in India can move beyond slideware to flight-tested hardware, defensible intellectual property and global markets. Multiple startups have crossed key technical milestones, executed ISRO-backed demonstration missions and laid out commercial launch roadmaps extending into 2026, giving investors greater confidence in execution and monetisation.
“For a long time, I was sceptical about Indian deep tech,” said Anirudh A. Damani, managing partner at Artha Venture Fund. “Most opportunities were closer to lab projects than businesses. That changed with spacetech.” Damani points to Agnikul and the ecosystem built around IIT Madras and Sriharikota as an inflection point. “These were no longer projects. These were companies with real customers, real economics and credible timelines,” he said
A key factor has been the role played by ISRO and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACe), which helped de-risk early experimentation by opening access to testing infrastructure, launch facilities and regulatory pathways. This reduced capital burn in the riskiest phases, allowing startups to focus on engineering execution.
At Chennai-based launch vehicle startup Agnikul, investor confidence shifted after the company demonstrated India’s first private large-format 3D-printing facility for metre-scale rocket engines, enabling single-piece Inconel engines to be produced in days instead of months. “The conversation moved from ‘will it work?’ to ‘how fast can we scale?’,” said Srinath Ravichandran, co-founder and chief executive officer of Agnikul
Agnikul’s controlled vertical launch of Agnibaan SOrTeD from Sriharikota further reinforced that shift, marking the first time an Indian private company demonstrated fully autonomous vertical lift-off without traditional rail launchers. While early validation relied on ISRO infrastructure, the company is now moving towards greater independence with its own additive manufacturing facility and a new space campus in Tamil Nadu, Ravichandran said.
Investors say such milestones have changed how they underwrite deep-tech bets. At Mela Ventures, deep-tech investments are typically considered only after companies cross Technology Readiness Level 8—where systems are tested and qualified through demonstration. “We like to see clear commercialisation opportunities, if not actual revenue, even with our first cheque,” said Suhani Doshi, vice-president of investments at Mela Ventures
More broadly, spacetech’s progress has influenced capital allocation beyond the sector itself. Funds that once avoided deep tech are now backing semiconductors, electro-optics, robotics and AI-led hardware. “Spacetech wasn’t an outlier,” Damani said. “It was the proof point. It showed deep tech in India had crossed from being technology-led to business-led”
Whether other deep-tech sectors can replicate spacetech’s trajectory remains an open question. But for now, India’s spacetech startups have delivered something rare in venture investing: evidence that complex science, patient capital and commercial discipline can coexist—and scale—from India.
Published on December 24, 2025
