Today, our guest is Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at Speciale Invest, a deep-tech focused early-stage VC firm in Chennai. Vishesh and his friend and VC partner Arjun Rao are among a handful of investors in India backing entrepreneurs who are attempting to bring to market really difficult science and engineering-based products, in areas ranging from space exploration to quantum computing and solutions addressing climate change.

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:52) Our guest today — Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at Speciale Invest

(02:15) A snapshot of Speciale Invest’s story so far

(03:22) More on the philosophy at Speciale and what the founding partners wanted to do when the started the firm

(06:07) How backing science and engineering based startups at a very early stage is different from other startups like ecommerce or SaaS

(10:03) Some examples of startups and sectors that Speciale has invested in

(14:34) Second fund — first close last year and soon to announce final close

(15:11) Sectors that the VC firm will seek to invest in, in the coming months and quarters

(17:08) An outside-in look at Speciale’s investment strategy — one that hasn’t been proven in India yet

(17:59) A trip to Israel — a nation of survivors and entrepreneurial spirit

(20:54) More on what helps Israel’s startup ecosystem succeed

(22:02) Biggest lessons from Vishesh’s career so far

(23:42) On being optimistic about the prospects of Indian science and engineering startups to become big companies and global successes

(26:31) Some thoughts on the semiconductor sector

(28:52) The vision for Speciale Invest, three years from now

More about Speciale Invest

https://www.specialeinvest.com/about-us

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds