With Kiran Mysore, Principal, UTEC, Japan
Venkat Vallabhaneni, Managing Partner, Inflexor Ventures
Seen as a nascent space, Deep Tech – which refers largely to companies creating a tough-to-replicate, complex and scientific solution to a problem – is slowly picking up in South Asia in terms of deal activity and investor interest. The sector enjoys favourable government policies particularly in Singapore, the hub for much of the action in the region.
This panel will explore if South Asia has it to become the next global hub for deep tech? What would it take for the region to get there? Will the region benefit from the low cost of commercialisation of a deep-tech solution? Will access to a huge market in its backyard prove to be an advantage?
UTEC Japan’s Kiran Mysore and Inflexor Ventures’s Venkat Vallabhaneni will take us through their deep-tech investment thesis, the region’s outlook and challenges and some of their most interesting bets.
The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners or UTEC hit the first close of its fifth global deep tech fund at $275 million and is targeting to invest more heavily in Southeast Asia. In SE Asia, it has invested in Singapore-based deep tech firms like SWAT Mobility, Immunoscape, OPALai and Tricog. Its portfolio in India includes Bugworks Research and the firm is also an LP in Blume Ventures Fund III.
Inflexor Ventures recently closed its technology fund at $81 million to back B2B/enterprise startups leveraging deep tech, technology IP and innovation. Inflexor has so far invested in Steradian Semiconductors, AR-based edtech firm PlayShifu; Vitra.ai, an AI-ML-based content translation platform and Kale Logistics, an AI & blockchain-enabled logistics tech company.
