Aum Ventures, an early backer of Indian spacetech unicorn Skyroot Aerospace, is targeting the final close of its second fund by March next year, as it looks to double down on investments in India’s emerging deep tech ecosystem.
The venture capital (VC) firm raised Rs 225 crore ($23.6 million) at the first close of India Innovation Fund II earlier this month, drawing capital from both foreign and domestic limited partners (LPs). The fund is seeking to raise a total of Rs 750 crore.
The fundraise marks a notable shift in Aum’s investor base, with Indian LPs accounting for about 35% of the capital at the first close.
“Our first fund was backed entirely by international investors. This time, we have seen a shift in the LP mix, with domestic investors joining the fund,” Chetan Mehta, founding partner at Aum Ventures, told DealStreetAsia. “For us, this is an important evolution,” he added.
The domestic LP base so far comprises family offices and high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), while the firm is also in discussions with institutional and government-backed investors.
“Indian investors are becoming much more sophisticated about venture capital. There is greater understanding that deep tech is not simply an R&D story – it can create very large businesses if the underlying technology translates into commercial adoption,” said Mehta.
Aum’s global LP base includes family offices from the US, Middle East and Singapore, as well as fund managers based in the US, Israel and Southeast Asia and technology entrepreneurs, he added.
Fund strategy
Aum plans to invest at the pre-seed and seed stages, with initial cheques ranging from $750,000 to $2 million. It also plans to reserve capital for follow-on investments through Series A and Series B rounds.
“We are ready to start deployment from Fund II and the wires will start from the end of this month,” said Mehta, adding that the firm is targeting 25-30 investments from India Innovation Fund II.
Aum will continue to focus on space tech, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and defence technology, among other areas.
“These are the core focus sectors where we are seeing significant tailwinds and opportunities. The other sectors we are also looking at are robotics, advanced manufacturing and energy-transition technologies,” said Mehta, adding that Aum is increasingly looking at opportunities beyond software and into physical technologies.
“India has tremendous engineering talent and an increasingly supportive ecosystem, but historically much of that talent has been deployed towards services rather than building proprietary products. That is changing,” he added.
Key gaps
Even as the sector has moved from the fringes of the startup ecosystem to a more prominent spot on investors’ radars in recent years, the lack of growth capital remains one of its biggest constraints.
“India has become much better at funding the idea-to-prototype journey, but there is still a significant gap between a working technology and scaled commercial deployment,” said Mehta.
According to IVCA data, the country’s deep tech sector has drawn nearly $11.4 billion in PE-VC investment since 2015, with funding reaching a record high in 2025.
Series C+ rounds accounted for just 7% of deals, while pre-seed and seed rounds made up 39% of deals.
“We need a broader pool of growth-stage deep tech investors, strategic corporate capital, sovereign and institutional capital, and government-backed financing mechanisms,” said Mehta.
Growth-stage investments in deep tech require a different type of capital – larger cheques, greater understanding of the technology and IP, and a higher tolerance for technology and manufacturing risk.
Exit landscape
Aum Ventures, whose debut fund had a corpus of $30 million, counts Skyroot Aerospace, Azimuth AI, Cosmoserve Space, and Sanyark Space among its portfolio firms.
So far, the VC firm has scored one exit from Sharang Shakti, an AI-based defence technology firm, acquired by LAT Aerospace, led by Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal.
The sector could see a mix of strategic acquisitions and IPOs, while larger global technology companies could also emerge as buyers as Indian deeptech startups grow.
“As the ecosystem matures, the universe of potential strategic buyers will also expand,” said Mehta.
