Aum ventures unveils 80 million fund for semiconductors spacetech and ai startups

NEW DELHI: Aum Ventures, an early-stage venture capital (VC) firm, on Friday launched its second fund -- India Innovation Fund II -- with an $80 million (~₹750-crore) corpus, to invest in early-stage companies across space technology (spacetech), semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), and other frontier sectors. "India is at a unique inflection point where policy support, talent, and capital availability are converging to create unprecedented opportunities for DeepTech and innovation," said Chetan Mehta, founding partner, Aum Ventures, in a statement. The new fund will primarily invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups, with initial cheque sizes ranging from $750,000 to $2 million and then provide follow-on capital up to Series A and B rounds. Aum Ventures expects to support 25–30 portfolio companies with Fund II.Further, the Firm has roped in Nisha Shah as a General Partner for Fund II. Shah, in her previous roles, held leadership positions in a large family office and has worked for venture capital and private equity firms while being with consulting firms.Established in 2022, Aum Ventures has deployed $30 million in 24 early-stage startups, including Skyroot Aerospace, Cosmoserve Space and Sanyark Space. In semiconductors, it was the first investor in Azimuth AI, which is building a custom system-on-chip (SoC). Sharang Shakti, a maker of defense robotics and with investment from Aum Ventures, has been recently acquired by Deepinder Goyal’s LAT Aerospace. Goyal is the former chief executive of Zomato's parent company, Eternal. The technology investment landscape has also become more supportive, backed by public and private capital. Government initiatives such as the $12 billion Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) Fund, Production Linked Incentive (PLI) program, spacetech programs, among others, are accelerating innovation and commercialisation across strategic sectors.