BENGALURU: Yali Capital on Monday announced the launch of its Rs 810 crore (including a Rs 310 crore greenshoe option) venture fund.
The fund, co-founded by Ganapathy Subramaniam (Gani), former CEO of Cosmic Circuits, and Mathew Cyriac, Executive Chairman of Florintree, will support early-stage deep tech startups in India, Yali Capital said at an event in Bengaluru.
It aims to invest in innovative areas such as chip design, robotics, genomics, smart manufacturing, aerospace, AI and other such sectors with deep tech as its base.
“We believe India is inherently strong in deep tech. As a country, we have 40 years of high-quality chip design experience. India is also very strong in robotics and is now gaining ground in genomics, smart manufacturing, etc. Yali’s limited partners consist of top tech executives from India and the USA and with our collective experience, we believe we can lay a strong foundation for deep tech companies from India," said Ganapathy Subramaniam, Founding Managing Partner of Yali Capital.
Gani began his career at Texas Instruments before co-founding Cosmic Circuits. He was also the chairman of Cirel Systems. He also serves on the boards of companies such as IdeaForge and Galaxeye.
"I see strong opportunities in homegrown deep tech companies in sectors such as aerospace, imaging, instrumentation and several other emerging areas," Mathew Cyriac, Founding General Partner of Yali Capital, said.
Lip-Bu Tan, advisor to Yali Capital, said Indians have been very strong in deep tech due to a strong emphasis on STEM in their education system. Tan has backed many deep-tech companies led by Indian-origin CEOs in the USA.
Yali Capital has already approved investments in four deep tech companies and expects to complete these investments by the third quarter of 2024. Its target close is Rs 500 crore, with an additional Rs 310 crore as a greenshoe option. Yali will focus on India as its geography and deep tech as its thesis. Chip design will be the primary focus area, with robotics, smart manufacturing, genomics, aerospace, and AI as other focus areas, it announced.
