In conversation with Gourav Bhattacharya, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Tenacity Ventures

“DeepTech deserves dedicated growth capital, not just early-stage funding.”

India’s startup ecosystem has matured rapidly over the last decade. While capital has become increasingly available for consumer businesses and early-stage startups, one crucial segment continues to remain underserved in the growth-stage funding landscape for deep technology companies.

Recognizing this gap, Gourav Bhattacharya, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Tenacity Ventures, co-founded the firm in 2021 with a singular mission: to become India’s specialized growth-stage investment partner for deeptech startups.

Having spent nearly a decade investing across India and global markets through Matrix Partners India and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ, Gourav observed that India’s investment ecosystem lacked dedicated firms capable of supporting deep technology companies once they achieved product-market fit.

“While there are several deep-tech oriented firms at the early stage and several generalist growth-stage firms, there is no one in India that does exactly what we do.”

Rather than being generalists, Tenacity Ventures has chosen specialization partnering with companies that require more than capital to scale globally.

The Meaning Behind “Tenacity”

The firm’s name reflects more than perseverance; it represents the type of entrepreneurs the team actively seeks.

For Gourav, tenacity is the ability to continue building despite uncertainty, failures, market downturns, or prolonged periods without visible success.

Interestingly, the median age of companies in Tenacity’s portfolio is 8–10 years before the firm’s first investment an indicator of founders who have spent years refining businesses before reaching meaningful inflection points.

“Tenacity means the ability to keep going no matter what.”

Whether surviving COVID, navigating difficult sectors like edtech, or patiently compounding growth over a decade, these founders demonstrate that enduring businesses are rarely built overnight.

What Makes a Founder Investable?

While every investor develops unique evaluation criteria over time, Gourav consistently prioritizes three qualities before writing a cheque:

• Perseverance to absorb setbacks and continue building.
• Clarity of thought regarding where the business is headed.
• Commercial ambition to build a genuinely large company.

However, once founders begin scaling, two additional qualities become powerful indicators of long-term success.

The first is an exceptional understanding of business fundamentals from pricing and margins to customer economics and value creation.

The second is the ability to sell.

“Ultimately, a founder’s job is largely sales to customers, employees, investors, and other stakeholders.”

According to Gourav, the strongest founders are rarely just product builders; they are persuasive communicators capable of aligning everyone around a common vision.

Fundraising Doesn’t Need to Be Complicated

Many first-time entrepreneurs unintentionally make fundraising more difficult than it needs to be.

Gourav believes founders often spend excessive time perfecting lengthy presentations when investors generally prefer concise, focused communication.

“Typically an intro deck should not be longer than 10–12 slides.”

Equally important is avoiding the misconception that fundraising always requires intermediaries.

While experienced investment bankers certainly add value, Gourav encourages founders to confidently approach investors directly.

A clear, thoughtful cold outreach targeted at the right investor often receives serious consideration.

Balancing Conviction with Discipline

Growth-stage investing requires strong conviction but equally strong discipline.

Instead of allowing excitement to dictate decisions, Tenacity follows structured investment principles.

These include limiting exposure to any single company, evaluating follow-on rounds with the same rigor as first investments, and conducting independent due diligence regardless of who else is participating.

“The trick is to build conviction in the first place, and then put automatic guardrails.”

For Gourav, independent thinking remains one of venture capital’s greatest competitive advantages.

Why Great Products Alone Don’t Build Great Companies

Exceptional technology is only one part of the equation.

According to Gourav, startups that successfully scale are distinguished by their willingness to experiment rapidly, learn from failures, and adapt continuously.

Rather than becoming emotionally attached to products or markets, winning founders iterate quickly and remain deeply connected to customer feedback.

“Product-market fit only exists if you have paying customers that give you more than it costs to serve them.”

This disciplined focus on customer economics ultimately separates sustainable businesses from promising ideas.

Beyond Capital: Becoming a Go-to-Market Partner

Unlike traditional investors who primarily provide financial support, Tenacity Ventures positions itself as an active strategic partner.

Drawing upon both operational and investing experience, the team works alongside founders on go-to-market strategy, organizational design, capital allocation, fundraising, and major business decisions.

Yet, Gourav also recognizes that every founder’s needs differ.

“Some founders need hands-on help, while others simply need us to stay out of their way.”

This flexibility, he believes, defines effective long-term partnerships.

India’s Most Underrated Opportunities

While consumer brands continue attracting headlines, Gourav believes the country’s next generation of value creation will emerge from industries receiving comparatively less attention.

His areas of conviction include:

• Vertical SaaS
• Infrastructure software
• Advanced hardware
• Biotechnology & life sciences
• Advanced materials
• Renewable energy
• Electric vehicles and battery technologies

Among these, vertical SaaS particularly stands out.

“Vertical SaaS built for very specific industry workflows continues to be underestimated, and can be an area where India dominates globally.”

He also points toward a structural funding gap between early-stage venture funds and late-stage private equity, a space Tenacity was specifically designed to address.

AI Will Redefine Venture Capital

Artificial Intelligence, according to Gourav, will reshape not only startups but venture investing itself.

He foresees a future where AI enables incredibly lean companies capable of generating billions in revenue, while simultaneously creating entirely new categories requiring unprecedented capital investments.

“AI will permeate every part of our lives.”

However, despite AI’s immense capabilities, Gourav believes the greatest competitive advantage will remain fundamentally human.

Creativity.

Judgment.

Clarity of thought.

These qualities, when amplified by AI, will define tomorrow’s category leaders.

Building for Global Markets Starts on Day One

For Indian founders with international ambitions, Gourav offers one piece of advice that challenges conventional thinking.

Rather than designing products that are merely “good enough” for domestic markets, entrepreneurs should build against global benchmarks from the very beginning.

“Don’t dilute your product for a ‘good enough for India’ bar if the ambition is global.”

Building to higher global standards early creates stronger companies than attempting to retrofit excellence later.

The Long-Term Vision for Tenacity Ventures

Looking ahead, Gourav doesn’t envision Tenacity becoming a broad-based investment platform chasing every opportunity.

Instead, the firm’s ambition is to become an enduring institution known for one thing—being India’s premier growth-stage deeptech investor.

The strategy will remain sharply focused, if anything becomes even more specialized over time.

Ultimately, the goal extends beyond financial returns.

It is to help build companies that meaningfully contribute to India’s future economy and market capitalization.

A Final Message for India’s Next Generation of Builders

As India’s technology ecosystem enters what Gourav describes as a multi-year growth cycle, his advice to entrepreneurs remains refreshingly simple.

“Just start. Don’t overthink it. There’s no other way to learn about running a company than by doing it.”

In an era defined by rapid technological shifts, patient capital, disciplined execution, and founder resilience may prove to be the most valuable competitive advantages of all. As Tenacity Ventures continues backing deeptech entrepreneurs, its philosophy serves as a reminder that enduring businesses are not built through shortcuts but through conviction, perseverance, and the courage to keep building.

Interview By: Kashish Srivastava