Speciale Invest
Speciale Invest is a Chennai-based venture capital firm that backs pre-seed and seed deep-tech startups across India. Branding itself #TheDeepTechVC, it funds frontier science from space and robotics to climate and synthetic biology. In water, its bet is atmospheric-water startup Uravu Labs, one water company across three deals as of 2026.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Speciale Invest is one of the few Indian funds that wears the label #TheDeepTechVC and means it. Since 2017 it has written first cheques, a startup's earliest institutional funding, into space rockets, semiconductors, robotics and synthetic biology, the kind of hard-science bets most generalist investors quietly avoid. Founders Vishesh Rajaram, a chartered accountant who learned the trade at the veteran fund Ventureast, and Arjun Rao, a product builder who scaled a travel startup before turning investor, started it in Chennai on a single conviction: that India's next giants would be built on deep, defensible intellectual property rather than on imported playbooks.
For a water-curious reader, the honest framing is that Speciale Invest is not a water fund. Its one water investment to date is Uravu Labs, a startup that pulls drinking water out of thin air using moisture-grabbing materials, which Speciale backed at seed in 2023. That single deal lives inside a much broader climate-tech thread running alongside the fund's space and robotics work, rather than a dedicated water practice, so a newcomer should read this page as a deep-tech profile with one water bet, not a water-investing thesis.
As of December 2025, Speciale Invest is reaching past its seed roots. The firm announced plans to raise Speciale Invest Growth Fund II, a Rs 1,400 crore growth-stage vehicle aimed at carrying Indian deep-tech companies across the 'valley of death' between a working prototype and commercial scale, bringing in a new general partner, Vijay Jacob, to lead it. For a newcomer that is the tell: Speciale keeps betting that the hardest, slowest technologies are exactly where the returns hide.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 1 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Speciale Invest invest in?
- Speciale Invest invests in early-stage deep-tech startups, the kind rooted in hard science and engineering: space, semiconductors, robotics, climate tech, synthetic biology and enterprise software. It writes first cheques at pre-seed and seed, and from its India base it has also backed startups in the United States, Israel and Singapore.
- Is Speciale Invest a water fund?
- No. Speciale Invest is a generalist deep-tech venture firm, not a water specialist. Its one water investment to date is Uravu Labs, an atmospheric water generation startup it backed at seed in 2023, recorded as one water company across three deals on (don't) Waste Water's tracker as of 2026.
- Who runs Speciale Invest?
- Speciale Invest was co-founded in 2017 by Vishesh Rajaram and Arjun Rao. Rajaram, a chartered accountant and former Ventureast investor, is the managing partner and public face of the firm's deep-tech mission. Rao, a former product entrepreneur, is a general partner. The two have run the fund from Chennai since the start.
- What stage does Speciale Invest invest at?
- Speciale Invest invests early, at pre-seed and seed, typically as a startup's first institutional backer. As of December 2025 it is also preparing a separate growth-stage fund, Speciale Invest Growth Fund II, to follow deep-tech companies into later rounds as they move from prototype toward commercial scale.
- Where is Speciale Invest based?
- Speciale Invest is headquartered in Chennai, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with a second office in Bengaluru. It was founded there in 2017 and invests across India, while also backing deep-tech startups in the United States, Israel and Singapore.