'Think big': Deep tech investors call for scale

NEW DELHI: India needs to think beyond incremental gains and build globally competitive deep tech companies, investors said at the AI Impact Summit on Tuesday, arguing frugality and scale could position the country as a long-term innovation hub.

"The chaos that's inherited in India and the frugality that's there breeds innovation. The moment you have a large amount of surplus, you never look at optimisation. The greatest deep tech innovations across the world have always happened from a place of frugality," said Siddarth Pai, co-founder of 3one4 Capital.

Pai said India's structural constraints must not be viewed as disadvantages but as conditions that force sharper engineering and capital efficiency.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Axilor Ventures and Infosys, urged founders to target global markets from the start. "What's required is to think big. We have examples of technology from India going global. Our MOSIP open-source identity programme is running in 29 countries; 300 million people got IDs with that...," he said.

Gopalakrishnan said while foundational technologies such as AI, robotics and quantum computing require patient capital and policy innovation, the larger opportunity lies in applying these technologies across sectors such as agriculture, healthcare and education.

A report released at the event underscored the growing investor focus on AI and deep tech. AI companies attracted 188 investments worth $1.2 billion in 2025, marking a 58% year-on-year increase. AI now accounts for 12% of total venture capital funding, up from under 5% in 2020. Since 2016, nearly $28 billion has been invested across more than 2,100 deep tech deals in India, with the segment now representing 15% of overall private equity and venture capital activity.

The report noted that while early-stage capital has strengthened, growth-stage funding remains limited, and the absence of large specialist deep tech funds could constrain global scaling.