Yali Capital Rolls Out INR 810 Cr Fund To Back Deeptech Startups

Yali Capital, a venture capital firm floated by Cosmic Circuits’s cofounder Ganapathy Subramaniam and former Blackstone executive Mathew Cyriac, has launched an INR 810 Cr (around $97 Mn) early stage fund to back startups operating in the deeptech sector.

The fund will focus areas, including chip design, robotics, genomics, smart manufacturing, aerospace and AI, among others, in the deeptech space.

The VC firm has also roped in former chief executive of Cadence as an advisor.

“Yali’s limited partners consist of top tech executives from India and the US and with our collective experience, we believe we can lay a strong foundation for deep tech companies from India”, said Subramaniam.

“I see strong opportunities in homegrown deep tech companies in sectors such as aerospace, imaging, instrumentations and several other emerging areas,” Cyriac said.

Yali Capital is a SEBI-approved Category 2 AIF and its target close is INR 500 Cr, with an additional greenshoe option of INR 310 Cr.

With over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, Subramaniam also serves on Ideaforge and Tonbo Imaging boards. He is also the chairman of Cirel Systems, a provider of analogue and mixed-signal ICs.

Meanwhile, Cyriac has served as senior managing director and co head of private equity in India at The Blackstone Group. He also serves as a board member at Fino Paytech, Aeries Financial Technologies and CMS IT Services. 

This development comes at the heart of investors prioritising deeptech startups with the segment witnessing several fund launches in recent times. 

For instance, VC firm 8X Ventures marked the first close of its INR 200 Cr (around $24 Mn) DeepTech fund alongside an additional greenshoe option of INR 100 Cr.

Last year, deeptech venture capital fund, Java Capital also closed its INR 50 Cr fund, with participation from founders in the Indian startup ecosystem and high net worth individuals (HNIs) located in India, the Middle East, and the US. 

Not to mention, the government has also come up with incentives and policies to bolster the segment. Earlier this year, it made a substantial investment of INR 10,372 Cr over five years for the India AI Mission, marking a boost in the AI ecosystem. 

In the interim budget of February, the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated a corpus of I lakh Cr towards research and development in the sunrise sector. The initiative intends to provide long-term financing or refinancing’ at low or nil interest rates.