Jamwant Ventures Partners Aavishkaar Group To Launch INR 500 Cr Defence Tech Fund

VC firm Jamwant Ventures has partnered with impact investment firm Aavishkaar Group to launch its second fund, Jamwant Ventures Fund 2, with a target corpus of INR 500 Cr (about $60 Mn).

The early stage-focussed fund will also have a greenshoe option of INR 250 Cr.

Aavishkaar Group has partnered with Jamwant Ventures through its newly launched ‘OneAavishkaar’, an initiative to support emerging venture funds with fundraising, investments, operations, ESG and compliance.

While Jamwant Ventures is the primary stakeholder, Aavishkaar Capital holds a minority stake in the fund which will look to back 15-25 startups with a ticket size of $1 Mn to $5 Mn.

“The fund will initially draw support from Indian institutions and family offices, expanding later to NRIs and overseas investors. Capital deployment is expected within a year, with an active approach in leading rounds and taking board roles,” Jamwant Ventures told Inc42 in a written statement.

Jamwant Ventures expects to mark the first close of the fund in June next year and final close by the end of 2026.

Founded by former Technology Development Board (TDB) director Navneet Kaushik, Kartik Gopal and Jyotsana Dala, Jamwant Ventures invests in defence tech and deeptech startups.

The firm launched Jamwant Ventures Fund 1 last year and its corpus of INR 40 Cr has been fully deployed across early stage defence and deeptech startups. Notable investments from the fund include Spacefields, TIEA Connectors, Axial Aero, Aeronero, Thrustworks Dynetics, AstraYAN, Suhora Technologies, and Green Aero Propulsion.

Notably, with the Centre’s focus on self-reliance, a number of defence tech startups have emerged over the past few years to meet India’s security needs. The military conflict with Pakistan earlier this year gave a further boost to defence tech startups as the products of homegrown players showed their effectiveness during ‘Operation Sindoor’.

India’s defence market is set to grow 48% from $27 Bn in 2025 to $40 Bn by 2030, with about $19 Bn of this led by new-age technologies such as AI, autonomous systems, and quantum computing.

As a result, investors are actively backing defence tech startups to capitalise on this opportunity. Last month, Unmannd raised $2 Mn in its pre-seed funding round led by Speciale Invest and Accel. Earlier this year, Raphe mPhibr raised $100 Mn at a valuation of $900 Mn in a funding round led by General Catalyst.

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