India’s deep-tech ecosystem has moved from being a relatively niche investment category to becoming an increasingly important part of the country’s startup landscape. From space technology and semiconductors to climate technology, advanced manufacturing and applied AI, startups are increasingly working on problems that demand long development cycles, technical expertise and patient capital.

For Vinod Shankar, Founding Partner at Java Capital, this shift has been visible for years. Java Capital, founded in 2020, focuses on early-stage investments in deep tech and climate technology, backing companies from the idea and prototype stages and working with them towards product-market fit and global scale. The firm’s portfolio includes companies such as Agnikul Cosmos, The ePlane Company, Okulo Aerospace, Oorja Energy and LightSpeed Photonics.

In a recent conversation with Indian Startup Times, Shankar spoke about his journey into venture capital, why he chose to focus on deep tech when relatively few investors were doing so, what he looks for in founders, the changing opportunity landscape across frontier technologies and why he remains measured about investing in AI amid the current hype.

From Startup Operator to Venture Capital Investor

Shankar’s journey into venture capital began with his own experience of working with startups.

His first exposure to the startup ecosystem came through a company that was later acquired, an experience that showed him the scale of possibilities that could emerge from building or working with an early-stage company. Over the following years, he worked with startups, explored angel investing and eventually moved into venture capital.

He joined kalaari before co-founding Java Capital in 2020. Public profiles describe his experience as spanning both startup operations and venture investing, with his work at Java Capital focused particularly on early-stage deep-tech and climate-tech companies.

For Shankar, one of the biggest attractions of venture capital is the possibility of non-linear outcomes.

“There are very few professions where you can see non-linearity,” he explained during the conversation, pointing to entrepreneurship, building businesses and venture capital as fields where the eventual outcome can be significantly different from the initial starting point.

That interest eventually shaped his approach to investing.

Why Deep Tech Became the Focus

When Shankar entered venture capital full-time around 2016, he noticed a significant gap in the ecosystem.

There were relatively few investors willing to back startups working on fundamental technologies, particularly at the early stages. For founders building around biotechnology, aerospace, semiconductors or other technically demanding areas, access to capital could be difficult because the companies often required more time before reaching clear commercial milestones.

For Shankar, this was both an investment gap and an area of personal interest.

“I was interested in deep technology personally, given my background in technology,” he said, while also pointing to the limited availability of capital for deep-tech companies at the time.

That gap became one of the foundations of Java Capital’s investment approach.

Today, Java Capital describes itself as a deep-tech and climate-focused seed-stage fund, investing in companies from the idea and prototype stage and supporting them through product-market fit and global expansion.

Investing Before the Market Is Fully Established

One of the challenges of investing at the pre-seed and seed stages is that many companies do not yet have significant revenues or a clearly established product-market fit.

For Shankar, that makes the investor’s ability to assess the future of a market particularly important.

Rather than looking only at the market as it exists today, early-stage investors need to consider how that market could evolve and whether the founding team has the capability and persistence to build through that evolution.

This becomes particularly relevant in deep tech, where the journey from technology development to commercialisation can take time.

Java Capital’s current investment approach reflects this early-stage focus, with the firm stating that it backs founders at the idea and prototype stage, before a market or product may be fully established.

Technology Alone Is Not Enough

While technical innovation is central to deep-tech investing, Shankar believes technology cannot be separated from commercial potential.

He draws an important distinction between research and investable deep-tech businesses.

Java Capital, he explained, does not invest in pure research or an unproven scientific concept. Instead, it looks for companies that have moved beyond the earliest stages of research and have a tangible technology with potential for commercialisation.

For him, the balance lies in identifying companies where the technology has progressed sufficiently while still retaining the potential to create a large commercial opportunity.

That is where the investor’s role becomes important: supporting technically strong founders while also ensuring that the company is ultimately building a business capable of generating revenue and returning capital to investors.

The “Vibe Check” When Meeting Founders

When it comes to founders, Shankar says the first interaction can reveal a surprising amount.

He described this initial assessment as a “vibe check”  an instinctive sense that develops during the first 10 to 15 minutes of meeting a founder.

That first impression is not the end of the evaluation, but it can determine whether he wants to explore the company further.

From there, the assessment becomes deeper, covering the founder’s background, capabilities, understanding of the problem and ability to build over the long term.

For Shankar, the founder remains particularly important when investing at a stage where financial and market data may still be limited.

Looking for Opportunities Before Everyone Else

Shankar’s investment philosophy also revolves around looking beyond areas that have already become crowded.

He pointed to Java Capital’s early investments in areas such as space technology, electric flying taxis, high-altitude platforms and semiconductors. Companies in these categories have since received significantly more attention across the startup and investment ecosystem.

His approach is to look for the next set of opportunities before they become mainstream.

“Every space starts as a niche,” he explained.

As more capital enters a particular category, more companies begin to emerge and competition increases. For an early-stage investor, this creates an incentive to keep moving towards areas where fewer investors are currently looking.

Among the areas he is currently watching are quantum materials and alternative sciences, alongside continued interest in space, aerospace and other frontier technologies.

The underlying idea is simple: identify technologies at the frontier before they become widely recognised as investment themes.

Beyond the AI Hype

Artificial intelligence has become one of the biggest areas of startup and venture activity globally, but Shankar remains selective about where he sees investment opportunities.

He acknowledged that the speed of change in AI makes it difficult to make long-term investment calls with certainty.

For Java Capital, the focus is not necessarily on investing in AI for its own sake. Instead, Shankar is more interested in companies where AI can become an important component of a deeper technological or commercial proposition.

He sees opportunities in applied AI, particularly where the technology strengthens an existing deep-tech business.

At the same time, he remains cautious about companies where AI is primarily being used as a layer around an existing product without a sufficiently strong underlying technological advantage.

His approach reflects a broader principle in his investment philosophy: technology should solve a meaningful problem rather than simply become the central narrative of a startup.

The Challenge for Deep-Tech Founders: Turning Technology Into Business

For founders coming from research or engineering backgrounds, Shankar identifies one challenge repeatedly: moving from technical capability to business execution.

Deep technical expertise can create the foundation for a strong company, but founders also need to understand customers, revenue, commercialisation and market development.

“Tech alone won’t just work,” he said.

For him, one of the biggest gaps among technology-led founders is understanding how to translate research and technical capabilities into a commercially viable business.

That transition requires founders to develop capabilities beyond the technology itself.

What Does It Take to Scale a Startup?

When asked about building a scalable company, Shankar highlighted several responsibilities that become particularly important for founders and CEOs.

The first is hiring the right people and giving them the authority and responsibility to execute.

The second is the ability to raise capital and communicate the company’s vision effectively. According to Shankar, a founder is constantly selling the story not just to investors, but also to employees, co-founders and other stakeholders.

The third is persistence.

Startups often encounter periods where progress appears slow or where the next milestone seems distant. Shankar believes founders need the ability to stay focused rather than constantly shifting towards the next attractive opportunity.

For him, consistency and persistence are essential characteristics for founders building long-term companies.

Java Capital’s Role Beyond Writing the Cheque

Shankar also sees venture capital as extending beyond capital deployment.

At Java Capital, the objective is to work closely with founders through different stages of company building.

This includes helping founders connect with potential customers, supporting go-to-market conversations, connecting them with investors for subsequent funding rounds and leveraging the firm’s broader ecosystem.

The firm also has a presence connecting India and the US, which Shankar says can help portfolio companies explore customers, networks and opportunities in international markets.

Java Capital’s public profile similarly highlights its cross-border access to capital, networks and experts, with operations spanning Bengaluru and California.

For Shankar, this is an important part of the investor-founder relationship: capital can provide runway, but networks, expertise and access can help founders use that runway more effectively.

A More Supportive Environment for Deep Tech

Looking ahead, Shankar believes the ecosystem has changed considerably compared with when he first started investing in deep tech.

According to him, founders today have access to a broader ecosystem of investors, government programmes, research support and grants than they did several years ago.

He pointed to initiatives and mechanisms including fellowships, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, the RDI Fund, technology development programmes and state-level support.

The broader funding environment for Indian deep tech has also attracted increasing investor attention. Recent industry reporting has highlighted growing momentum across areas such as AI, spacetech, semiconductors, robotics and climate tech.

For Shankar, this makes the current environment an important period for founders working on technically ambitious companies.

His message to deep-tech entrepreneurs is to make full use of the grants, programmes and early-stage capital available to them while building technologies that can eventually compete in global markets.

Building India’s Next Frontier

From his early exposure to startups to building Java Capital around deep technology, Shankar’s journey reflects a long-term interest in technologies that may take years to reach their full commercial potential.

His investment philosophy centres on looking beyond what is already obvious whether that means backing a deep-tech company before its market is established, identifying frontier technologies before they become crowded investment categories or evaluating AI through the lens of actual technological and commercial value.

As Java Capital continues to invest in early-stage companies across deep tech, climate technology, space, mobility, energy, semiconductors and related areas, Shankar’s approach remains centred on one fundamental question: what can this technology become when given the right founder, capital and time?

For India’s next generation of deep-tech founders, that long-term perspective could become increasingly important as the ecosystem moves from proving that deep tech can be built in India to demonstrating that globally significant technology companies can be built from India.

-By Aakriti Jaiswal