Piper Serica launches Rs 800 crore Bharat Tech Fund to support India’s deeptech startups

Mumbai-based asset manager Piper Serica has launched a new Category II Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), Bharat Tech Fund, with a potential corpus of Rs 800 crore, as investor interest in India’s deeptech sector gathers pace.

The fund has a target corpus of Rs 600 crore, along with a Rs 200 crore greenshoe option, and will focus on Series A and Series B startups working in areas such as semiconductors, AI, spacetech, defence technology, biosciences and fintech infrastructure.

Piper Serica said the average investment size would range between Rs 25 crore and Rs 50 crore, with the fund targeting a gross internal rate of return (IRR) of about 30% over an average holding period of six years.

The firm said the fund is expected to close by December this year.

Director Ajay Modi said, “We invest in founders who demonstrate three things: the technical depth to build something genuinely defensible, the leadership capacity to build an organisation around it, and the commercial discipline to scale it with unit economics that hold,” Piper Serica’s director Ajay Modi said.

“For the first time, Indian founders are building IP-led, engineering-first businesses that are globally competitive, not just domestically relevant,” Modi said.

Piper Serica said it was working with institutions including IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay and Indian Institute of Science, as well as government-backed innovation platforms such as Innovations for Defence Excellence, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to identify investment opportunities.

The firm also uses a proprietary AI screening platform, Yoda.ai, to evaluate potential investments.

Founded in 2003 by Abhay Agarwal, Piper Serica manages more than Rs 1,400 crore in assets across public and private markets.

The firm launched its first early-stage venture capital fund in 2022 with a target corpus of Rs 100 crore. Since then, it has invested in 35 startups spanning sectors including semiconductors, AI and spacetech.

In 2026, Piper Serica has backed startups including Mysa, Sensesemi Technologies and Vobiz. Earlier this month, the firm invested $1 million in airport operations technology startup Blunav.